Mileage
by Misaia
Summary: As the miles roll away beneath their tires, Tony looks over at Steve and finds himself hoping that the road will never end. Steve/Tony no powers/road trip AU, crosspost from AO3. Rated M for later chapters.
1. Dishwashers

For response to a prompt by Vamp in the StarkRogers_AUs collection, crosspost from AO3.

This chapter was written to: Leave Me - Imagine Dragons

Enjoy.  
Misaya

* * *

Tony Stark had not expected this at all. When he had plastered the advertisement across the sprawling pages of the Internet, he had assumed that people would be savvy enough to understand that by "companion to view the States with," he'd actually meant "beautiful, busty girl to defile half the country's living establishments with." And had that not been clear enough, he would have assumed that the request to wear a wet, white shirt for the first meeting would have been obvious enough that it was an advertisement for girls only.

And clearly, there were still people in this day and age who did not, would not, could not read the subtleties of Internet ads, as evidenced by the young man standing and looking confused in the foyer of the coffee shoppe, his white T-shirt dripping all over the black-and-white tiles.

Tony sighed and rubbed the back of his neck in exasperation before waving the man over.

He approached Tony's table hesitantly.

"Mr. Stark?" he inquired.

"The very one," Tony agreed, indicating the empty seat opposite him. "Please, have a seat. Your name is...what, exactly?" He eyed the man appraisingly. Blue eyes stared back at him innocently, and Tony wanted to laugh at his naivete. Up close, however, Tony did have to admit that the damp white V-neck tee did cling rather deliciously to the man's chest.

"I'm Steven Rogers," was the reply. "But people call me Steve."

"Ah, Steve. A strong, solid name. My name is Anthony Stark; I believe you already know of me?" Tony examined him over the frames of his glasses.

Steve just stared back at him.  
"Tony Stark? Ring a bell?"

Steve slowly shook his head. "Am I supposed to have heard of you?"  
Tony looks at him, aghast. "You've never heard of Stark Industries?"

It is as though a light clicks on, rather slowly in Steve's head as he made the connection. "That's...the company that sells dishwashers, right?" Steve asked, looking across the table at him hopefully.

Tony rolled his eyes. "Well, yes, among other appliances. We sell cars, electricity, electronics, things like that. I'm the owner of that company."

Steve smiled innocently at him. "It's a pleasure to meet you, Mr. Stark. I have to say your company makes very good dishwashers."

Tony just barely has the grace to keep from dropping his face into his hands. "Tony is fine," he said in between gritted teeth. "And I'm glad you like our...dishwashers. They are fine products."

After he finished mentally reciting the first seventeen integers of the Fibonacci sequence to himself, he took a deep breath and looked back up at Steve, plastering a smile on his face.

"Now, Steve, tell me why you responded to the advertisement?" he asked.

"Well, it said that you wanted to see the States with somebody," Steve responded, looking over to the side as if trying to remember. "And I want to see the country also before my deployment."

Ah. A soldier then. Well, Tony thought as he struggled not to ogle Steve's chest for the third time that minute, his workout regimen was certainly doing wonders for his physique.

"I'm a safe driver, so you wouldn't have to drive all the time. I'm pretty entertaining," Steve continued, and Tony wondered if he was about to start listing cookie-cutter resumé qualities on his fingers. "I'm okay with talking and telling stories while driving, or we could just listen to music if you want, or you could go to sleep, that's okay too" - and, oh yes, Tony thought, there came the finger counting - "and I'm not very picky about things like food and sleeping places and stuff like that. And I don't have any romantic arrangements right now, so we wouldn't have to worry about that either."

Tony nodded, and said "Okay," every once in a while, but the hollow of Steve's throat was proving to be downright distracting.

Steve's voice shook him out of his reverie.

"And, in conclusion," Steve said, sounding for all the world like a primary school persuasive essay, "I think you should hire me for this job."

Steve sat back in his chair, looked at Tony expectantly. "Well?" he asked when Tony just stared back at him. "What do you think?"

I think you look like a golden retriever, Tony wanted to say, but instead he reached into his pocket, pulled out a $20 bill and handed it to Steve. "Do you mind getting me a drink?" he asked. "Get yourself one as well, of course. And don't forget to tip."

Steve picked up the money, pressing the crisp edges between his fingers. "What would you like, Mr. Stark?"

"Listen carefully," Tony said. "I'd like you to order me an iced, half-caf, ristretto, venti, 4-pump, sugar-free, cinnamon dolce soy skinny latte."

Steve stared uncomprehendingly at him, but when Tony asked him if he needed him to repeat it, Steve shook his head. "No. No, I think I've got it."

Tony admired Steve's back as he walked away, the lines of the damp white cotton only further accentuating his muscles. Definitely a lovely body, Tony thought, although most definitely not a girl. My reputation around women must have preceded me, he mused idly as he drummed his fingers on the table, waiting for Steve to come back.

Seven minutes later - and yes, Tony had timed - Steve returns with his complicated drink order in hand.

"Can you tell me what it is?" Tony asked, looking up at Steve.

He watched Steve worry his lower lip with his teeth, vaguely wondered if Steve's previous girlfriends had ended the relationship because he was too adorable. Bad boys were in right now, or had that been last fall? He couldn't remember.

"You asked for...an iced, ristretto, venti, 4-pump, sugar-free, cinnamon dolce soy skinny latte," Steve said, ticking the list on his fingers again. He paused. "Half-caf," he finished, looking down at Tony triumphantly. "That was all, Mr. Stark."

"Tony," he corrected gently, smiling at Steve. "And I do believe I said you could get something for yourself as well, and to leave a tip."

Steve placed a ten, three singles, and a quarter on the table in front of him. "Your coffee was $5.75, 15% tip for service is approximately 86 cents, rounded up to the nearest dollar is a tip of $1.00 so you won't have to deal with pennies, out of $20 is $13.25. And I wasn't feeling particularly thirsty, but thank you."

Tony grinned as he pocketed the money, twirling the straw around and stirring the golden streaks along the inside of the plastic cup.

"Well," he said after a moment. "Mr. Rogers, it does look like you have yourself a job."

Steve looked downright childlike, like he was about to burst into elated giggles at any moment.

Tony took another sip of his drink. "Is there anything you'd like to ask or tell me before this 'interview' is over? Any questions or comments about me, or anything like that?"

"You're really young to have your own company," Steve said. Although you do make really great dishwashers, and cars, and televisions, and electricity like you said earlier, so I guess it's not that surprising."

Tony nodded along, pretended to listen while he was already making plans and an itinerary for the trip ahead. They'd have to visit Vegas for sure, maybe D.C., definitely Miami. The girls in Miami were stunners.

About your advertisement..." - Steve said, trying and failing to catch Tony's eye - Tony was looking at something on his chest again, had he stained his shirt somehow? A subtle downwards glance told him no - "I'm not quite sure what the reason for the wet T-shirt was."

Tony almost choked on his latte.


	2. Margaritas and Apple Pie

Crosspost from AO3, written to Selene: Imagine Dragons

* * *

"Pepper!" Tony called out as he walked in the front door of his spacious penthouse apartment. His lovely, slender assistant came tapping out in a delightfully tailored white blouse, pencil skirt, and black heels, and Tony took a few moments to appreciate her beauty.

"Yes, Mr. Stark?" she asked, smiling at him calmly and tucking a strand of blonde hair behind her left ear. "You called?"

Tony toed off his shoes at the black and white marble foyer and went over to her. Not for the first time, he thought about how gorgeous she was and vaguely wondered why he hadn't gotten her into bed yet.

She rolled her eyes as he smiled goofily at her. "Please, Mr. Stark, contain yourself. And the answer is still no, I am not at all interested in having any other relations with you besides a professional one."

Tony sighed dramatically. "Well, you are missing out on quite a lot here, you know," he said, gesturing down to himself in his Armani suit.

Pepper smiled at him. "Unfortunately I'll have to decline. You needed something?" she asked.

Tony ran his hands through his hair. "I'll be gone for a while, Pepper," he said.

She raised an eyebrow at him. "And...where will you be going? I assume you won't be working for that time. Should I give Mr. Williams a call and have him take over management of the company for a while in your absence?"

Tony grinned impishly at her. "No, not quite, Pepper dearest. I was thinking you might be able to help Mr. Williams this time around. You've been such a sweetheart and I know things will be rather uneventful without me around, so I figured you might be able to help manage the accounts and such. You know, figures and things like that. Of course, if you would rather just sit here in this little old apartment and look pretty while you wait for me to come back, that would be perfectly acceptable as well."

Pepper tossed her head back and laughed, and Tony admired the graceful lines of her throat.

"Unfortunately, looking pretty isn't in my job description, Mr. Stark," she said playfully, a sparkle in her dark eyes.

"It isn't?" Tony asked, padding to the kitchen and rummaging through the fridge. Pepper tap tapped behind him. "We'll definitely have to revise that. Would you like a margarita?" he asked, looking back at her.

"No, thank you, Mr. Stark. I'm still on the clock," she said, looking pointedly at him. "And so are you," she added as he pulled out a martini glass.

"Please, Pepper," he said, rolling his eyes. "I'm Tony Stark. What are they gonna do? Fire me?" he laughed.

He dipped the rim of the glass in salt, crushed ice, added a splash or four of tequila to the cup. Took a sip and glanced at Pepper, who looked innocently back at him.

"Surely you're not planning to travel alone?" she inquired. "I assume you're in one of those moods where you do the most impractical, impulsive things. Like driving all over the country like a madman."

Tony laughed as he took another sip of his margarita. "You know me far too well, Pepper."

"So, who's the lucky - or should I say unlucky - lady?"

"Why? You jealous?" Tony asked, waggling his eyebrows deviously at her and making her smile. "But if you must know, it's actually not a lady. It's a guy."

"Ah, indulging your other sexual fantasies, I see."

Tony set down his margarita glass, walked around the counter, and with a smirk on his face, proceeded to tell Pepper about the glorious muscles of Steve's torso.

* * *

"Ma," Steve called out as he walked in the front door later that same sunny Saturday afternoon. "I'm going to see the country."

He toed off his shoes at the door, his socks slipping over the shiny scuffed wood of the entryway. He padded lightly down the hallway, following the warm scent of apples and cinnamon to the kitchen. His mother stood with her back to the kitchen door, humming a little ditty to herself while she fussed around the oven. Steve smiled a bit.

"Ma," he said after a bit. "I'm home."

His mother turned around, smiled back at him. "Oh, Joseph, dear, I didn't hear you come in. They were selling apples at the farmer's market today, and I decided I'd make your favourite. I know you've been hard at work lately."

Steve bit back the tears that threatened to come to the surface of his eyes as he walked over and hugged his mother tightly, breathing in her familiar scent of cold cream and baking powder.

"I'm going to go away for a little while, Sarah," he said, even though the thought of acting as his late father pushed a hard ball into the pit of his stomach.

"Ah? Why's that?" his mother asked, pushing back from his embrace and splaying her hands on his chest. Steve captured the stiff, wrinkled fingers in his own.

"This man who makes dishwashers offered me a great job opportunity," he explained, looking into his mother's fading blue-grey eyes. "He wants me to travel the country with him. I can bring back a lot of money for you."

Sarah smiled up at him, the corners of her eyes wrinkling up into a nest of crow's feet. "That will be exciting, darling," she said. "I'm sure Steve will be very excited to hear about your adventures when you come back. Of course, he'll probably be more excited to stay up half an hour past nine and eat penny candy right before bed."

Steve smiled sadly, pressed his mother's hand to the side of his face.

"Yes, I'm sure he would love that. You do spoil that child so, dear," he said.

Sarah laughed and turned back to examine the pie rapidly cooling on the counter.

"Would you like some ice cream with your pie, Joseph?" she asked, pulling out a knife and cutting two slices.

"Yes," Steve said. "I would like that."

He watched his mother struggling with the ice cream scoop before standing up to help her with it. As he sat across the dining room from her, she reached out and rested a thin hand on his arm.

"Now, darling, you know those big salesmen, they're always trying to fool you at every turn. Be safe, won't you, sweetheart?"

Steve swallowed the bite of pie in his mouth through the lump in his throat. "Yes, I will."

"I love you very much, you know."

Steve stuffed his mouth with far too much crust to choke back the sob that threatened to spill from his throat.

"I love you too," he mumbled through the crumbs, and his mother smiled, and patted the back of his hand.


	3. On the Sentience of Furniture

Written to Wake Me Up! Avicii - Vitamin String Quartet. Crosspost from AO3.

* * *

Tony pressed a kiss onto Pepper's cheek as she handed him a fat stack of papers and a large duffel bag of clothes. For once, she didn't push him away.

"Pepper, you're a gem," he said, winking at her. "I don't know what I'd do without you."

"Yes, Mr. Stark, I do pride myself on my efficiency," she said, smiling back at him. "And you'll just have to make do for the next few months, won't you?"

"I suppose," Tony replied as he hefted the duffel strap over his shoulder. "Are you sure you wouldn't like to come with me? We could have a grand adventure together, you, me and Steve."

Pepper rolled her eyes. "I pity him, Mr. Stark. He'll have to put up with you."

Tony mock-pouted at her. "But you'll have to put up with old fuddy-duddy Oh-look-I'm-the-VP-because-I-was-friends-with-your-father Mr. Williams. Months, Pepper! Months of hearing about his new prune juice regimens and wheat germ supplements."

Pepper grinned. "Somehow I don't think he'll be that bad. He only talks about that sort of stuff with you; Mr. Williams is quite the entertainer around pretty ladies such as myself."

Tony rolled his eyes and gave an exasperated sigh. Pepper arched up on tiptoes to press a kiss to his forehead, and he looked up at her.

"You be careful, Mr. Stark," she told him, straightening the lapels of his polo shirt and brushing away a stray thread. She glanced over his shoulder, at Steve waiting patiently in the driver's seat of Tony's black Mercedes. "You ought to go; don't keep him waiting."'

As Tony walked towards the front door of the apartment high rise, Pepper called out to him, "Don't be too harsh on him, Tony! He looks like a sweet boy."

* * *

Steve's mother had insisted on walking him to Tony's apartment complex, holding his hand the whole way as if he was still a tiny child in kindergarten.

"Now, Steve," she told him, wagging her finger at him, "you've got to be careful about these rich-people types. They're very finicky, very persnickety, and, in my opinion, many of them are rather spoilt."

Steve privately agreed, but was more concerned about watching for stray gaps in the sidewalk where his mother might step and trip.

"Why, it's quite a coincidence, you know, Steven," his mother continued, tottering along unsteadily and clinging to his arm. "You're more like your father than you realize. When we were younger, when you were only a child, he told me about visiting the country also. Something about a dishwasher salesman. You were just a tiny boy then, four or five." She smiled fondly at the memory.

Steve looked at his mother, at the crows' feet nested around her milky blue eyes, and wondered if she would be alright while he was gone. He had hired a live-in nurse for the meantime, and silently prayed she and his mother would get along well.

A few more blocks later, Steve stopped outside the designated apartment skyscraper, saw Tony inside talking to Pepper. The tall, well-dressed valet eyed him up and down skeptically, taking in his plain T-shirt and faded jeans, before stepping forward hesitantly.

"Mr. Rogers?" he inquired.

"That would be me," Steve replied. His mother looked up at the valet, her eyes wide with amazement.

"Your mother dressed you very well, young man," she said, stepping forward and adjusting his suit's lapels. Steve tried to tug her back gently, but she wasn't having any of it. The valet looked amused, and laughed a bit as she adjusted the flower in his buttonhole.

"My mother's a lovely lady," he replied, handing Steve the keys to the sleek black Mercedes parked behind him. "And she does love dressing her children well."

Steve loaded his duffel bag into the trunk of the car, marveling at the smooth shine of the car's surface, warmed slightly by the morning sunshine. After closing the trunk, he walked back to stand beside his mother, who was still fiddling with the valet's collar.

"Ma," he said gently, reaching out and touching her shoulder. She jumped, as if surprised.

"Oh, and this is my son, Steve Rogers," she said, looking at him proudly. "Lord knows I taught him to dress better than that, but what can you do?" The valet looked like he was about to laugh, but had the good graces to contain them. "He'll join the army soon," she said, smiling proudly.

"Is that right?" the valet said, looking Steve up and down speculatively.  
"Yes!" his mother said excitedly. "He's a very brave boy, you see."  
Steve wanted to facepalm, but the valet only smiled gently.

"Yes, he is very brave, ma'am," he said. "He's a brave man for taking this job with my employer. He's the man inside, you see, talking to the blonde lady."

Steve's mother looked inside, rolled her eyes. "He looks very fuddy duddy for a rich man. Polos? Please. Maroon isn't a good colour with that skin tone, either."

Steve pulled his mother into a tight hug and wished, not for the first time, that he could take her with him. But Tony's rules had been rather specific, and somehow he doubted his mother would want to see girls in bikinis, which he suspected was something he'd be seeing a lot of in the upcoming months.

She arched up on tiptoes and pressed a kiss to Steve's forehead, brushing an errant curl of hair to the side.

"You be careful, alright, sweetie?" she asked, looking at him with concern.

"Yeah, Ma," he said, capturing her hand in his own and wondering when she'd gotten so small. "I always am."

* * *

Steve looked out the corner of his eye at the billionaire beside him and wondered, not for the first time, how he'd managed to get himself into this. His mother had always warned him about accepting offers from complete strangers (even if those offers did have a substantial number of zeroes), but Steve was all of twenty-seven, he could take care of himself.

Thirty miles into the journey to D.C. had determined that to be a lie. It was only through Steve's sheer will that he had managed not to drive head on into oncoming traffic.

The man beside him drummed his fingers aimlessly on the Mercedes' dashboard, jiggled his leg restlessly, and refused to blow his cigarette smoke out the window. Steve personally thought that he was nothing short of a saint, and was inclined to believe his mother would agree.

"So, Tony," Steve said, trying to distract himself from Tony's little annoying habits. He supposed billionaires did tend to pick those up over time. "What do you do for fun?"

Tony spared him a glance. "Women," he said with a grin, examining the fingernails of his right hand under the late morning sunlight. The summer weather had been somewhat humid, and Steve was afraid he was sweating through his T-shirt. Tony looked impeccable in his polo, and Steve vaguely wondered if he had any casual clothes or if that was just what billionaires wore all the time. Polos and three-piece suits and sweater vests.

Steve rolled his eyes, opened his mouth to pursue another line of conversation, when Tony added, "Sometimes men. I'm not picky, really."

Steve paused for a moment, the quiet purr of the car's engine flooding his thoughts. "Pardon?" he asked after a while. Tony looked at him with amusement.

"I do men, also," he repeated. "Sure, there's something about girls that's just so lovely, all those curves, all those boobs, you know what I'm saying?" Steve was scandalized but couldn't tear his eyes away from Tony's hands weaving through the air in an hourglass shape. "But there's also something about guys, you know? They can really give you what you want. Strong, powerful, stuff like that. And let's face it, some guys have just absolutely phenomenal asses."

Steve felt his face heating up. Tony laughed and clapped him on the shoulder.

"You dear, sweet, innocent little boy," he said, taking off his glasses to wipe tears of mirth from his eyes. "You've probably never even had a woman, have you?"

Steve blushed even harder, and tried not to think about the one time he'd accidentally gotten just a tad too handsy at a high school reunion party. His old girlfriend had certainly developed a frightening amount of upper body strength; the bruise she'd left on his face hadn't faded for four days and he'd had to convince his mother that he'd accidentally tripped and smashed his face up against a fence.

"You haven't?" Tony stopped laughing, looked at him, aghast. He whistled in amazement. "I'm either impressed, or ashamed. I think more ashamed than impressed, though."

Steve clenched his hands on the wheel, gritted his teeth, focused on the road and tried to drown out Tony's voice. Unfortunately, the billionaire had a certain talent for pitching his voice in such a way as to drill through Steve's strongest defences.

"Why not?" Tony inquired, looking at Steve over the tops of his glasses. "You're a good-looking man. And you can't be that old. Twenty-five? Twenty-six?"

"Twenty-seven," Steve muttered. "I'm twenty-seven."

"Yeah, see, you're in the peak of your life, the time when you'll have girls flinging themselves at you left and right," Tony blathered on. "So why not? Surely there must have been at least one girl you'd have liked enough for that. Or are you saving it for marriage?"

"Something like that, yeah," Steve said, wishing Tony would just shut up, but Tony continued on.

"Maybe you're gay," Tony said in excitement, turning to Steve with a grin on his face. "You just don't know yet!"

Steve sighed and rolled his eyes, scrubbed his face with the heel of one hand, and lamented yet again that he hadn't listened to his mother as Tony prattled on about how they'd definitely have to hit up Las Vegas and get Steve a one night stand.

Steve vaguely wondered what that was, why Tony was so adamant that he only acquire one piece of bedside furniture and not two ("No! Definitely not!" Tony had shouted. "Do you WANT her to call you back? God no!"). He was also rather confused about how Tony had deduced that said furniture was female, and was most puzzled over the fact that, in the last decade, nightstands had somehow acquired sentience and the ability to operate mobile telephones.

He supposed Tony would show him another time, but right now, D.C. had never seemed so far away.


	4. Women and Children

Crosspost from AO3. Written to Count On Me - Mat Kearney

* * *

They rolled off the New Jersey Turnpike into Washington, D.C. three and a half tediously long hours of sex jokes and heavy innuendo later, the soft evening twilight warm against their skin. From Tony, of course. Steve hadn't heard of a fraction of the things Tony talked about (what exactly was S&M - salt and...mustard? Was Tony a fan of pretzels? -, and he was still rather confused about the nightstands). Steve had wrapped his hands tightly around the butter soft leather of the Mercedes steering wheel and prayed to God to give him strength.

Once within the city limits, Tony directed Steve along a network of roads, tapping at the screen of his phone the whole time and muttering to himself. The phone in question was a long, slender thing that looked like it would fall apart at the slightest swipe; it had the word "Stark" embossed along the side in silvery chrome.

"It's heat responsive," Tony had explained to him just an hour outside of D.C. "Fingerprint encoded, too. It's a prototype, of course; we still have to tweak a few things with identity recognition before we put it on the market."

"Of course," Steve had agreed, wondering why exactly you would need identity recognition on a telephone, then figuring it had something to do with copyright protection and patents and other corporate, legal things he had never bothered to learn about.

Steve followed Tony's instructions and soon enough they were pulling into the circular, paved driveway of the Willard Washington Hotel on Pennsylvania Avenue. It was a handsome building, all glass and marble and graceful alabaster arches, and Steve felt rather out of place in his ratty Nirvana T-shirt and faded denim jeans that had seen better days. A valet in a sharp-looking suit that probably cost more than Steve's entire wardrobe back home greeted them as they pulled up to the entrance of the hotel, bowing and opening their doors for them. Tony stepped out and slipped him a bill, which he pocketed with a small smile.

"Mr. Stark," he said, nodding politely at Tony. "Always a pleasure. And your esteemed guest, of course," he said, with a nod at Steve. Steve nodded back awkwardly as a bellboy dressed in a maroon vest with gold trimmings came trotting swiftly down the marble stairs to collect their luggage. Steve tried to tell him that he was perfectly capable of carrying his own duffel, thank you very much, but the boy grabbed the straps from him while he was handing the valet the keys to Tony's Mercedes. Tony just grinned and allowed the bellboy to load up his golden luggage cart with their bags before handing him a bill. Steve couldn't see the denomination of the money, but whatever it was, it pleased the bellboy immensely if the huge smile on his face was anything to go by.

Tony walked up the marble steps into the hotel lobby, whose floors were so shiny Steve could see his reflection staring back at him from the tiles. He trailed behind Tony awkwardly, uncertain, as Tony flirted with the pretty concierge behind the solid oak desk. Steve looked around the lobby, at the pretty ladies dressed in pretty satin numbers in all manner of colours, at the gentlemen whose silken ties perfectly matched their companions' dresses or sashes or hair ornaments. It was a beautiful place for beautiful people, and Steve felt rather conspicuous. Tony fit in well here, he mused, just as Tony walked back towards him, handing him a key card.

"This is for your room," Tony stated. "It'll be right next to mine."

"Thanks," Steve said, accepting the card from Tony.

"There's some sort of celebrity showing today that I was invited to," Tony explained, gesturing around to all the dressed up people milling around the lobby. "Hard to believe they're not just dressed up for me," he said with a wink. "But supposedly there's some actor who's hosting a charity event here tonight." He saw Steve's look of distaste and laughed. "Don't worry, I won't drag you there, it's very boring stuff and I'd hate for you to lose taste for me when we haven't even left the East Coast yet."

Steve looked at Tony's back as they stepped into the elevator. The billionaire carried himself confidently, his shoulders strong and broad beneath his maroon polo shirt, and Steve didn't think he looked fuddy duddy at all. He sighed silently and toed at a hairline crack in the glass floor of the elevator with his beat-up, dusty black trainers.

* * *

Steve opened the heavy wood door to his room and gaped at the sheer size of it. He took off his shoes at the entrance and left them by the door, marveling at the softness of the thick cream-coloured carpet beneath his feet. The furniture was a rich mahogany shade, smooth and shiny with polish. The bedsheets were tucked in sharply at the corners of the king-sized mattress, and he flopped onto the bed, reveling in the coolness of the linen against his cheek.

He grinned up at the rococo patterns on the ceiling and tossed his arms out to the side, rolling in the sheets like a child. It had been far too long since he'd slept in such a large bed. He tugged his shirt over his head and rolled himself under the sheets, breathing in the soft scents of cotton and soap as he dozed off.

* * *

Tony knocked at his door half an hour later, impeccably dressed in a perfectly tailored Armani suit and a crimson tie.

"I'll be going to the event now," Tony said. "I won't be back until rather late, so feel free to have dinner without me. There's plenty of places to eat here." He eyed Steve's chest with a raised eyebrow, lingering on the smooth white line that ran up his side. "Although I'm rather sure most places have the no shirt, no service policy, so you'll probably want to put something on before you go out."

Steve could tell Tony wanted to ask about the scar, but didn't volunteer any information about it. Instead he wished Tony a good time at the charity event and when Tony had disappeared around the corner to the elevators, closed the door and rummaged through his duffel for a shirt.

* * *

Steve found a small diner three blocks from the hotel. He walked up to the counter and plucked a menu from the napkin rack beside him. After a few moments, a pretty waitress came up to him, her notepad and pen in position to take his order. Her dark hair was glossy and swept back into a messy bun, held in place with a stubby pencil. Her dark eyes had long lashes that cast soft shadows over her cheekbones, and her mouth worked at a piece of bubblegum even as the corners tilted up to smile at him.

Steve just stared at her, his order completely forgotten.

"Hello?" the girl asked after a moment of silence. "Would you like to order anything?"

Steve stood up, his heart in his throat, his appetite completely gone. "No, sorry, I'm not hungry after all," he murmured as he gently pushed past her. He could feel her staring at his back, but he didn't turn around.

It wasn't until he was back in the privacy of his hotel room that Steve climbed onto the bed, hugged a pillow to his chest, and inhaled the neutral, sterile scents of cotton and soap as he willed himself not to cry.

* * *

"I've never really understood the appeal of politics," Tony said, looking up at the giant marble statue of President Lincoln the next day. Tony looked like hell, Steve privately thought. He hadn't heard him come back last night, and when he'd knocked on his door at 10:30 that morning, Tony had answered with bloodshot eyes and a look of pain on his face. "It seems like you'll only be praised after you die," Tony mused. "Although I guess that's not so different from anything else, really. Painters, writers, businessmen, soldiers."

Steve only looked up at President Lincoln and felt very, very small.

* * *

The Holocaust Memorial Museum was crowded that day, schoolchildren on tour, elderly people with canes shuffling around and reading the plaques and holding each other's hands. For once, Tony didn't try to make any snarky jokes, and instead was respectfully quiet as he read the walls, which Steve appreciated.

He got lost in reading the wall exhibits and didn't notice that Tony had gone. When he finally caught up with him, he found Tony standing still in front of the pile of shoes.

Tony had a look of agony on his face, and Steve wondered if it was because of the poignancy of the exhibit or his hangover, but decided not to ask.

* * *

Steve stood next to an old man at the Vietnam Memorial, silently tracing the words with his mouth. He could see the two of them reflected in the black marble of the wall, and wondered if he would look like that in fifty or so years, if the wall was an indication of things to come.

The old man reached out and tapped an embossed name on the wall.

"My brother," he said, his voice raspy and hoarse. "Viet Cong ambushed him."

He coughed, and Steve waited patiently for him to continue. The old man tapped another name on the wall, a few inches up from his brother's name.

"My father. Died trying to evacuate a village with women and children."

He sighed and his old, gnarled fingers lingered over a name a few columns over.

"My best friend," he said finally. "Chemical warfare. And here I am," he said, waving to his reflection in the marble. "Some nights I ask, 'Why me?' There's never a good answer for it, and I've been asking for decades now."

Steve nodded respectfully, silent. The old man finally turned to look him full in the face.

"You a soldier?" he asked.

"Not yet. Soon. I'll be deployed to South Korea in a few months."

The old man nodded, coughed a bit more. "War makes old men of us all," he commented, tracing wrinkled fingers over the names again. "What's your name, son?"

"Steve. Steve Rogers."

"That's a strong name. Wear it well," the veteran said. "And I pray to God the people who care about you will never have to stand at a memorial like this and run their fingers over your name. It's the worst thing in the world."

The veteran hobbled away, coughing. Steve watched him go, watched Tony approaching from the opposite direction, and wondered if he would have anybody to touch his name if he died.

He pushed the thought away and forced himself to smile at Tony as he stopped beside him.

He looked at their reflections in the memorial. Their faces were distorted by the gold-white engravings of the endless list of names, and their bodies could have belonged to any soldier, any businessman.

"Do you know anybody on here?" Tony asked, breaking the silence.

"No," Steve said, shaking his head. "How about you?"

"My grandfather is here," Tony said, running his hands across the smooth stone and the upraised letters. Steve began to say something, but Tony cut him off. "He doesn't deserve it. He's not a hero."

Steve was scandalized, and he just stared at Tony with a mixture of confusion and indignation.

"Back in the '50s, Stark Industries was really into industrial chemicals. The US government commissioned the company to make chemical weapons. Agent Orange, the Rainbow Agents, you heard of them? Yeah of course you have. That was in part from Stark Industries. My grandfather was a monster," Tony spat out bitterly. "Hundreds of thousands of people, dead, injured beyond repair. And they give him a name here, to remember him."

Steve just stared at him. In the black surface of the memorial, Tony's reflection threw up its hands in exasperation.

"Let's go," Tony muttered. "Talking about this sort of stuff leaves a bad taste in my mouth."

Tony's reflection walked away from Steve's. Steve traced his fingers over the name "L. Stark," a golden name at his eye level, before he followed Tony. For just a moment, as their reflections overlapped and blurred in the glossy marble, Steve swore they could have been the same person.


	5. The Place That You Love

Crosspost from AO3, written to Slow and Steady - Of Monsters and Men

* * *

Three days later, after they'd toured Congress and seen the Smithsonian and all the other war memorials, Tony told him that he thought it might be time to leave the capital.

As the bellboy packed their bags into the trunk of the Mercedes, Steve asked Tony, "Where to now?"

Tony just shrugged as he handed the bellboy a tip. "Anywhere. Take me to a place you love."

As Steve turned the key in the ignition and felt the engine rumble to life underneath him, he thought he knew just the place.

* * *

As they left D.C. behind them, Steve looked at Tony curiously from the corner of his right eye. Tony was wearing a red and white checked plaid shirt, the collar turned down, his arm resting against the windowsill of the passenger seat, his fingers drumming against the smooth leather. Tony was looking out the window, frowning.

Steve cleared his throat, uncomfortable with the silence, and hummed a little bit.

Tony didn't say anything, and burrowed down a bit into the leather of his seat, closing his eyes. The frown didn't leave his face as he slipped into sleep.

As Tony's neck tipped back, Steve caught a glimpse of something shiny hanging round his neck. He wasn't sure from this angle, but it looked a bit like a ring, held up by a delicate silver chain, resting in the dip of Tony's collarbones.

Steve wondered whose it was.

* * *

Tony woke up just as the sign for Durham city limits went rolling easily by his window. The evening light painted his face with soft purples and golds, softening the creases between his eyebrows.

"Durham?" Tony questioned, turning to him with curiosity in his face, one eyebrow arched. "What's in Durham for you?"

"I went to university here," Steve explained.

"And...that makes it a place you love?" Tony asked, looking incredulous. "My university years were horrendous. Of course, I hadn't learned to have fun yet, so maybe that's why."

Steve grinned. "I had someof the best years of my life here. I'll show you the campus, some museums, the gardens, you'd like it, I think. It's a peaceful place." And she was here, he thought to himself. She was here, too.

Tony sighed and looked out the window as dusk deepened and cast dark shadows over his face. "I hope you have some sort of living arrangements already somewhat planned out?"

"No," Steve admitted, "but it shouldn't be too hard to find something..."

* * *

That was quickly proven to be a lie as Steve turned into driveway after driveway, only to be told there were no vacancies anywhere. The fancier hotels required reservations, and even the name "Anthony Stark" seemed unable to pull any strings anywhere, which left Tony rather irritated, if the tense lines of his shoulders were anything to go by. Finally, Tony turned to Steve in exasperation.

"Look, we might as well just try to find a Motel 6 or something," Tony said, running a hand through already ruffled dark hair. "It doesn't look like our prospects are good tonight, unless you'd like to be sleeping in the park or something. And besides, I'm pretty hungry."

At Tony's directive, Steve turned into a lot which housed a small diner that proudly displayed "Breakfast 24 hours!" in glaring red neon letters, a deserted gas station with flickering fluorescent lights, and a rather seedy looking motel that claimed to have vacancies. Steve looked apologetically at Tony before parking the Mercedes and flicking off the headlights.

They walked inside and were greeted by a bored looking teenage girl snapping bubblegum at the counter. The curve of her mouth and the freckles dusting her cheeks had Steve's heart in his throat, beating rough and fast, but he willed himself to stop thinking about it. About her. The insolent look she threw over the top of her 'Seventeen' magazine helped immensely.

"Do you have any rooms?" Steve inquired. The girl licked her index finger, turned the page.  
"Just the one," she replied, not looking up.

Steve looked at Tony, who just shrugged at him. Figuring that something was better than nothing, Steve agreed, slid some money over, and took the key from the girl's hand.

* * *

Steve dropped their duffel bags onto the floor of the room as Tony flicked the lights on; when he looked up, he sighed in disappointment and vaguely wondered how badly his back would hurt in the morning.

The room left much to be desired. The hideous grey green carpet might have been beige at one point, or dun, but it was impossible to tell under the medley of stains of ketchup - or at least, Steve fervently prayed it was ketchup, or wine - and other assorted condiments. The writing desk was covered with a fine layer of dust, and the television was severely outdated, even by Steve's standards. The alarm clocks on both nightstands on either side of the solitary bed were stuck at different times: the left at 2:14 PM and the right at 7:34 AM.

The solitary bed was covered with a white coverlet and held four pillows that looked passably clean. The wooden headboard hadn't been polished in quite a while, and sun had bleached part of the wood a tan colour.

Tony looked at him. Quickly, Steve said, "You can have the bed, of course, Mr. Stark. Tony, I mean. You can have the bed."

Tony rolled his eyes, sighed. "We might as well share it. It wouldn't do any good if you woke up with a backache from sleeping in that shoddy excuse of a chair" - Tony indicated the pleather swivel chair in front of the writing desk, which didn't look strong enough to support a lapdog, let alone Steve - "and God only knows what's been on the floor." Tony eyed Steve speculatively. "Unless, of course, you think I'm liable to molest you in your sleep. I won't, in case you're wondering."

Steve rushed to correct him. "No, no, it's not that. Of course we can share. I just thought maybe you'd want to sleep by yourself."

Tony shrugged. "It's been a while since I slept alone," he admitted, somewhat self-consciously.

In the cheap yellow light of the room, Steve caught the glint of small diamonds studded in the ring looped around Tony's neck.

He opened his mouth to ask, but thought better of it, and instead suggested they head across the lot to get something to eat.

* * *

The diner's signage didn't lie - they really did serve breakfast 24 hours a day, and were more than happy to serve Steve and Tony some pancakes and bacon, though it was already 10 PM.

As they sat at the counter, sipping coffee from cracked porcelain mugs, Steve noticed Tony fiddling with his necklace. Tony didn't seem aware that he was doing it, and Steve decided not to mention it, as Tony hadn't asked about his scar back in D.C.

He figured Tony would tell him soon enough.

* * *

"I'll take the first shower, if you don't mind," Tony said, rummaging through his duffel and looking up at Steve.

"Of course, go ahead," Steve murmured, sitting on the edge of the bed delicately and flipping through channels on the television. There wasn't a vast selection - he hadn't expected there would be one - and finally settled on some sort of animal documentary.

Tony stepped into the bathroom, and Steve heard the sound of running water a few short moments later. The sounds of the shower and the documentary's British narrator were almost loud enough to drown out the sound of the creaky, moaning air conditioning unit in the corner of the room that seemed absolutely incapable of doing anything other than making noise.

Steve frowned and walked over to the window, pulling it open, the hinges protesting with a series of squeaks and chirps. The cool night air breezed into the room, and Steve pulled aside the ratty blue curtain, leaned against the windowsill, and sighed.

* * *

"Your turn," Tony called to him a few minutes later, walking out of the bathroom. He didn't have his glasses on, and his hair was wet, curling around his face. He was wearing a T-shirt that had the words "Stark Industries" emblazoned over a rocket - a kid's T-shirt, Steve thought - and a pair of deep blue cotton pajama pants. Sans beard, Tony Stark could easily have passed for a very tall young child.

Steve thanked him, and walked past him into the bathroom with a change of clothes.

As the scalding hot and icy cold water ran over him in intervals, Steve lathered up with a small bar of green soap. His fingers stopped when they found the unnaturally smooth skin running along his side.

A thrill of emotion ran through him, shuddering up his spine and cinching around his throat as he remembered.

The knife, but who had the knife? He whirled around, and the darkness was making it hard to see, and it was raining and his hair was matted to his forehead, and the fear and the anger and despair were palpable in the air, so thick, so humid -

His reverie was broken by a knock at the bathroom door.

"Left side or right, what do you prefer?" Tony shouted through the door.

"Right, if you don't mind," he shouted back, shaking the water out of his eyes and the thoughts from his mind. Tony didn't say anything, and Steve quickly finished washing up.

* * *

They lay awkwardly side by side in the mattress, which was far lumpier than it had looked on first inspection. Steve was painfully aware of the position of their limbs, every tense of muscles, every twitch.

Finally, Tony sighed. "Just relax. You're making me nervous."  
Steve apologised profusely, and closed his eyes tightly.

* * *

He must have fallen asleep; when he woke up, soft morning sunlight was spilling in through the gap in the curtains, and Tony was nowhere to be seen. The depressions in the mattress where Tony had slept were still warm, and were very clearly on one side of the bed. Steve scrubbed a hand over his face, blinking the sleep from his eyes, and rolled over to look at the alarm clock, whose neon red digits were still stubbornly stuck at 7:34.

Tony came out of the bathroom, already dressed in another polo shirt and a pair of dark jeans. He stopped when he saw Steve awake.

"That wasn't so bad, see," he said, with a grin. "Relax, oh fair damsel," he teased. "Your purity is safe. For the moment."

Steve rolled his eyes and rolled out of bed.

* * *

"You went to Duke?" Tony asked, looking suitably impressed as Steve drove through one of the university gates. The tall gothic spires of the buildings arched over them, and Steve smiled as he remembered all the fun times spent beneath the arches, all the beauty the campus had to offer.

He parked the Mercedes underneath a stand of trees, and stepped out of the car. Tony got out, too, looking around. Steve hoped he was suitably impressed - it was the only place that might put him on the same level as Tony, if only for a brief moment.

"Nothing like Caltech, that's for sure," Tony muttered, and Steve's vague hopes were dashed almost instantly. "This place actually looks like a college is supposed to look. Like you can breathe here for a few moments without having to worry about which one of your classmates is developing the cure for cancer or something ambitious like that. This looks peaceful."

Steve couldn't have agreed more.

* * *

Steve showed him around the campus, showed him the lovely curls and arches and spires of the campus buildings, the stained glass panes in the windows.

Steve showed Tony his favourite place to study, a small dip in the ground by the Fish Pond, where you could feed koi fish striped and speckled with all variations of orange and red and silver. In the spring, he'd explained, all the trees would come alive with pink and white blossoms, which would fall on your books when you were studying, and which you'd have to brush out of your hair and the collars of your shirts afterwards. He told Tony about how, in the winter, a thin sheet of ice would form over the Fish Pond, and how some sororities and fraternities would make their new recruits run across the pond as part of the hazing ritual.

They walked across the grass towards the Schaefer mall, where Steve had worked as an undergraduate as a server for parties. Tony looked more and more amazed with every step, and even laughed as Steve admitted that the sheer amount of parties he'd had to work was probably the reason he'd never had sex in university.

The sun was setting behind the bell tower as Steve showed him the university chapel. They entered, the golden light casting dust motes into sharp relief and painting the floor with stained glass pictures. Tony looked around, his dark eyes taking in every detail.

Steve pointed to the seventh pew from the front. "This is where we sat," he said quietly, his words hanging in the still air of the chapel. "Me and a friend of mine."

"Did you come often?" Tony asked, although he didn't ask who Steve's friend was.

"Yes," Steve said. "We came every week. Sometimes on holidays, too, like Easter and Christmas and stuff like that. She was Catholic."

Tony nodded impassively, but still didn't ask. Steve could tell he was burning with curiosity, and was grateful that he didn't press the subject.

"I've never been religious," Tony admitted, rubbing the back of his neck and looking almost ashamed. "I was, perhaps for a few months, but then I wasn't anymore. It's funny, how things change like that."

Steve wanted to scoff. Tony, religious? Surely not. That was laughable. He objectified women (and men, by his own admission); he probably did drugs or had done drugs, he looked like the type to roll in mounds of cocaine in his free time; he most likely got drunk on weekends, or weekdays, or both, and several other vices that Steve wasn't up to thinking of.

Tony didn't seem to notice, though, and instead turned to look at the huge stained glass mosaic of Jesus above the altar.

* * *

That night, as they lay once again on the lumpy mattress, Tony said into the darkness, "You loved her."

Steve, half asleep, asked, "Who?" in a slurred voice.

"The girl you went to church with. You loved her, didn't you? I could tell. You loved this place because you loved her."

Steve didn't reply, and Tony turned to look at him. He was fast asleep, his mouth slightly open, his hair curling softly across his forehead.

Tony sighed and shut his eyes tightly, willing himself to fall asleep.


	6. My Friend Craig (Orlando Part 1)

Crosspost from AO3. Written to Crooked Teeth - Death Cab for Cutie

* * *

Tony grew considerably more animated the closer they got to Orlando. He had been annoyingly chipper when he'd woken Steve up at six that morning, when the rosy hues of sunrise were just spreading tentative fingers through the ratty motel curtain. Steve had muttered something, tugged a pillow over his head, and curled into the warm spot Tony had left behind (though he'd never admit it), and Tony smiled obligingly and allowed him to sleep for a gracious ten more minutes before tossing a glass of cold water over his chest.

Steve had shot out of bed with a harsh gasp resonating in his throat, fingers clumsy with sleep clawing at his wet sleeping T-shirt. Tony eyed him appreciatively, with a smile flitting around the corners of his mouth.

"Do you mind not looking at me like a piece of meat?" Steve had asked, running a hand through his unruly blonde hair as he rubbed the sleep from his eyes with the heel of the other hand.

Tony only laughed. "How could I not? Wet T-shirts, remember? I have a thing for them."

Steve looked down at himself; the cold water had made his nipples perk up and goosebumps peppered his skin. The soft, wet cotton of the T-shirt was clinging to his chest and ribs, and even from this angle, Steve could see every twitch of shivering muscle, every smooth plane and curve and angle.

He had blushed furiously and run off to the bathroom to change, feeling rather absurd, Tony's laughs echoing in his ears.

* * *

The noontime sun was currently pressing down on them as they headed south along the expressway to Florida, making heat rise off the asphalt in waves, and Steve was exceedingly grateful - not for the first time - that Tony's Mercedes had state of the art air conditioning. His old Toyota truck back home in Brooklyn had given up on air conditioning a long time ago - it had coughed and spluttered to its end along with the truck's suspension and fuel gauge. He'd been in the process of scrapping it for parts when he'd found Tony's advertisement online.

His eyes had widened when they caught the number attached to the ad. Six zeroes followed the first number, which Tony had stated "was subject to change, depending on how much I like you."

"Ma," he'd called out in excitement, his white T-shirt stained with grass marks and motor oil. "Come look at this!"

His mother came in and peered at the screen over the tops of her half-moon glasses, which he'd always teased her about. "What's all the fuss about now, sweetie?" She eyed the screen, squinting to make the letters come into focus. "Who's this Craig, honey? Is he a friend of yours?"

Steve didn't take the time to explain the concept of CraigsList to his mother. Instead, he pointed at the screen, and caught the scent of peppermint and cinnamon as his mother grasped his shoulder with little bird fingers and took a closer look at the screen.

"That's quite a lot of money your friend Craig here has to offer," she commented, frowning a bit. She looked at him. "Is it really wise for him to be waving it around and boasting about it? Nobody likes a braggart, darling."

"I'm going to try and apply for the job, Ma," he told her. "If I get it, we'll have enough money to pay for treatment for you."

His mother scoffed at him. "Oh, what is there to treat? It's just forgetfulness, part of growing old, you know. Happens to everybody. Just because they slap a fancy name like Alzheimer's on it doesn't mean anything."

She puttered off to the kitchen, her footsteps soft on the linoleum floor. Steve frowned in her general direction before filling out the required information and writing down the telephone number and location he was supposed to meet this Anthony Stark at. He wondered if this person was as uptight as he seemed; using full names seemed overly formal. He reviewed his information before sending his details across the Internet where, three nanoseconds later and miles away in Manhattan, Tony Stark's smart phone pinged brightly in the middle of a meeting about dishwasher sales.

The ever exasperated Mr. Williams shot Tony a long-suffering glare over the long mahogany conference table, but the billionaire just shrugged and tapped out a quick response that Steve wouldn't read until nearly five hours later, after the motor oil and grease had worked themselves into his palms and his hands were covered with blisters.

* * *

They rolled into Orlando at close to half past three in the afternoon. Tony had yapped for most of the drive about something called Epcot and Disney World and food, which Steve was particularly interested in. He'd been to Disney World once when he was five, and he distinctly remembered being terrified of the Peter Pan ride. Fortunately, Tony didn't appear to have any plans of spending considerable time at the amusement park; he seemed to be much more interested in the pretty, sun-bleached girls with questionable morals they were likely to find there.

There had been a mix up with the room situation, Steve quickly learned as Tony snapped irritably at the hotel receptionist, who looked positively indifferent to everything he was saying.

"It's the middle of summer vacation, sir, you can't expect for there not to be some confusion," she said, rolling her eyes. "Lots of kids and families coming, going, this sort of stuff happens. We're already offering you and your partner over there the room for free, and it's unlikely you'll be able to get another reservation at another hotel this close to the parks. It's really a very good deal, and you'll have an extra bed anyway."

Tony sighed in exasperation, and was about to continue off on another tirade when Steve stepped in. "We'll take it," he said, grasping Tony by the shoulders and moving him slightly to the side. He could feel Tony glaring at him, affronted, but the billionaire chose not to say anything and instead just nodded stiffly.

The girl smiled brightly up at Steve and handed him the room key. As Steve and Tony turned their backs to leave, Steve heard the girl say to the other receptionist sitting next to her, "Why is it that the cute ones are always gay? Such a shame."

He decided to concentrate on herding Tony to the glass elevators and didn't turn back to correct her. As the elevator doors slid shut behind them and the carriage shot smoothly upwards, Tony turned to look at him but didn't manage to get a single word out before bursting into laughter.

Steve looked on, bemused, as Tony leant against the glass wall of the carriage, the smooth lines of his body framed against the aqua blue of the sky as the elevator carried them up, up, up. Tony only had to look at Steve again to burst into another gale of laughter, bending over and pressing his hands against his stomach.

When he finished, he pushed his glasses up and wiped at his eyes with the heel of his hand. "Oh, my God," he said, his voice still crackling with a suppressed giggle. "So, Steve, darling," he said, adopting a lovey-dovey tone, "what say you take me into our room and ravish me? Hmm?" And Tony was off again, the laughs colliding in his throat until he choked, and even Steve had to smile at that.

* * *

"So what is this Epcot thing, and why do we have to dress up for it?" Steve asked, adjusting the vest Tony had so generously lent him; it clung to his shoulders and was a bit tight around the waist, if you asked him, but Tony said it suited him perfectly. He had to admit he did look rather nice, rather dapper, as his mother would say.

"Epcot is like a sort of food festival thing; I think you'll like it a lot. Very exotic, surely better than whatever you were eating in Brooklyn," Tony replied, adjusting the knot of his tie and frowning at himself in the mirror. "I got food poisoning all three times I went there for business meetings. And we have to dress nicely so that we can bring girls back, obviously."

At Steve's baffled look, Tony rolled his eyes and sighed as he ran his fingers through his hair, smoothing it down. "Oh, wait, I forgot, you're a bit of a prude." He ran his fingers over his shirt collar, creasing it sharply. "Girls won't bite, you know." He grinned snarkily. "Oh, well, I mean some will, but I suggest you go for a non-biter first. It's terribly hard to imagine you and 'kinky' in the same sentence; you probably get hideously embarrassed when you watch porn...if you watch porn." He took off his glasses and cleaned them on his shirt front. "Scratch that, your nose probably bleeds when you see a Victoria's Secret advertisement."

Tony dabbed a few smudges of musky smelling cologne onto his skin. "My dad once told me that good suits are like the sexiest lingerie, just on guys," he explained. "Not that I don't mind lingerie on guys, mind you," he said, arching an eyebrow at Steve's reflection.

Steve didn't respond, just cleared his throat embarrassedly and looked to the side, willing the rather prominent blush on his face to subside as he desperately tried to clear his mind. It didn't work, and Tony laughed before asking him if he needed a few moments to compose himself before they headed out.

* * *

"This is absolutely amazing," Steve mumbled through a mouthful of crepe and strawberry and chocolate. Tony just grinned at him over a glass of wine, and watched as Steve crammed more of the crepe into his mouth, the corners of his lips stained with powdered sugar.

Out of habit, he picked up a napkin and reached out, dabbing at the corners of Steve's mouth to wipe away the mess. Steve froze and stared at him, and Tony apologised, crumpled the napkin up, and went back to staring into his glass of wine.

* * *

Tony was well and truly drunk by the time they reached the middle of the Asian pavilion, and Steve was well and truly stuffed, but that didn't stop the billionaire from going up to the first pretty lady he saw and slurring a request for her to come back with him. It also was no deterrent to the hearty slapping he received, and the half-pitying, half-amused looks that Steve got as he dragged Tony by the arm away from her.

And Steve was strong - he was going to be a soldier, how could he not be strong? - but on a stomach full of crepes, sausage, pretzels, dim sum, and other things he couldn't even pronounce, and with Tony dragging his heels with every step and making passes at every woman they passed, it was rather difficult for him to get the two of them back to the hotel.

In the elevator carriage, Tony nuzzled up to him and Steve was far too ready to pass out into a food coma to push him away.

Steve barely managed to flop Tony onto his bed in one room, tugging off his shoes and lining them up neatly by the window. He carefully maneuvered Tony's legs onto the bed; by this point, Tony had already passed out and each of his limbs was dead weight. Steve went over to the bathroom and filled a glass with tap water, and put the glass by Tony's bedside for when he woke up.

In the connected room, Steve shrugged off the vest and folded it along with his dark jeans and dress shirt into a neat pile that he deposited on the armchair to the left of his bed. He went into the ensuite bathroom, ran the tap and swallowed a few mouthfuls of water.

Steve looked at himself in the mirror, and was relieved to see the face of a man who grew up in Brooklyn and who was more used to wearing the scents of motor oil and grease than the smells of expensive aftershave and cologne.


	7. Immersion (Orlando Part 2)

Steve lay in bed, staring up at the ceiling and trying not to listen to what was going on in the next room.

Tony had popped his head into the room six hours ago, dressed in a rather dapper vest that Steve thought was maybe Armani but he couldn't be sure, he'd never seen an Armani vest before but that seemed like the sort of clothes Tony would wear anyway being a billionaire and all -

"Hey," Tony's voice had snapped him out of his thoughts. "I'm going to go to the casinos for a bit. You want to come?"

Steve shook his head. "No, it's alright, I think I'll just stay in tonight. Lay low. Read a book, you know. Boring stuff."

Tony grinned. "Suit yourself."

He'd closed Steve's bedroom door, and Steve had heard him open the suite door before his footsteps came back. Tony opened the door again. "You know, if you want, I can lend you my reader."

"A reader?" Steve asked, rather nonplussed. He wasn't sure he was at the age where he'd need reading glasses quite yet.

"You know, eBooks?" Tony asked, arching an eyebrow at him. "No, of course you don't. One moment."

Tony disappeared from view, and Steve could hear the sounds of him rummaging through his duffel, along with some slight cursing - "Where the fuck did I put that blasted thing? I knew I should have slipped drugs into Williams's prune juice, who does he think I am, telling me that I should make things smaller, there's such a thing as too bloody small" - before Tony's footsteps came back and he popped his head in Steve's doorway again. He waved his hand, and Steve saw him holding a little square of silvery metal between his index finger and thumb.

"Here, I'll show you how to use it," he said, plopping down on the bed beside Steve. "It's quite simple, actually. Just a bit funny before you get used to the work around."

Tony pressed the black button on the top of the square, and a hologram popped up with a list of book titles. "So you just select a book - any eBook, really, which means any book that's been published online or converted into an electronic format from a printed work - and tap on it." He demonstrated with a copy of Anna Karenina, a work that had thrown Steve off Russian literature forever when he'd been reading it for a humanities GE class back at Duke. "So you read the page," Tony said, his finger tracing over the words projected into the air, "and then when you're done you just swipe your finger over the page to turn it." Steve watched in amazement as Tony traced his finger over the image and the page came up and turned, smoothing itself down. "Very simple, really. And very portable. I've been working on some things to make it as immersive as possible as well. A whole library and millions of worlds at your fingertips."

"To search," Tony continued, "you just tap the button to head back to the main menu, where you tap the little magnifying glass on the projection." Tony touched a finger to the magnifying glass, and a black box came up with a holographic keyboard on top. "Now you just type the name of whatever book you'd like to read, and if it's been written into an electronic version it'll show up. If it hasn't, well...you're rather out of luck there. But eBooks are a growing market, and I wouldn't expect all the books in the world to already have been transcribed into code quite yet."

"Oh, of course not," Steve had agreed, and Tony had grinned before hopping off Steve's bed.

"Well, I'm off then," he said cheerfully, sticking his hands into his slack pockets. "Wish me luck with the lady."

"The lady?" Steve asked, looking at him. "Not ladies?"

Tony laughed. "You're a quick learner, I'll give you that. Well, I did mean Lady Luck, but yes, good luck with the ladies is always appreciated. And with the gents, if I happen to come across any I fancy," Tony added, waggling his eyebrows suggestively at Steve. "Oh, and if you're looking for an excellent, long, fantastical sort of work, I can highly recommend the Lord of the Rings trilogy or the Song of Ice and Fire series. Both very good reads."

Steve only rolled his eyes and turned back to the projection in front of him. He could see the faint, wavy outlines of his legs through the page. He could hear Tony laughing as the suite door clicked firmly shut behind him.

* * *

One and a half hours later, as the remains of his room service steak and potatoes were cooling on the nightstand, Steve found himself accompanying Catelyn Stark as she sailed up the river towards King's Landing. He swore that he could feel the bed rocking beneath him with the motion of the waves, could smell the sharp tang of salt air, could hear the cries of the merchants and trading galleys as Catelyn heard them.

It was only the outlines of his jeans through the pages that reminded him it wasn't real.

He frowned a bit, focused more on the paragraphs, on the letters, and continued to read.

* * *

When Tony came back to the suite at half past one in the morning, Steve had just started to yawn and his eyes had started to hurt. But he couldn't stop now, it was an Eddard chapter, Eddard was a great character, reminded him of his father, and something horrible had just happened to King Robert, how could he just leave the book like that? Impossible.

He read another page before his concentration was shattered by a very shrill, drunken giggle, which was quickly followed by quite a lot of rustling of sheets, the soft ruffle of clothing as it fell to the floor. He could hear Tony's deep voice murmuring sweet nothings, muffled as if he was pressing the words into the girl's skin; could hear the girl's overly exaggerated, sloppy moans and whimpers and gasps.

He rubbed his eyes with the heel of his hand, and sighed. He desperately wished he'd been smart enough to bring ear plugs for situations like this. He tried to block out the girl's noises - she was rather loud, and if Tony was moaning at all, he couldn't really tell, save for a few grunts here and there - and attempted to concentrate on the words again. They were blurry in front of his eyes now, dancing a little bit, and wouldn't hold still no matter how much he wanted them to.

He reached over, clicking off the light on his nightstand, and lay down. The words oriented themselves automatically, and he smiled at the ingenuity of it all. Tony Stark was really quite a brilliant man, he thought to himself, not for the first time.

He lay there for quite a while, dozing in and out of sleep as the page danced soft light across his face and the girl continued to cry out and moan in the next room. He hoped Tony was having an excellent time, but was still rather in disagreement about his whole sense of morals. He hoped at the very least he was using a condom. It wouldn't do if he'd have to take Tony back to New York City, to that nice blonde lady in the pencil skirt he'd seen talking to Tony before he left, to the nice valet who'd smiled at his mother; it wouldn't do to tell them that Tony had contracted some sort of disease, what if they blamed him and he never got paid and he'd just have to watch his mother's mind slowly decay...What if she wouldn't remember him when he was leaving, what if he'd never signed up for the draft, what if what if what if...

* * *

He must have fallen asleep eventually, because when he woke up, early morning sunlight was hiding behind the dark curtains of his bedroom window and the alarm clock read 6:23 AM in segmented red numbers. The room next door was completely silent, for which he was grateful.

Steve got up, stretching and sighing in relief as he felt the knots in his back and neck loosen and dissolve. He rummaged through his duffel bag for a clean change of clothes and his razor.

In the shower, which was blessedly hot, he closed his eyes and leaned his forehead against the wet tiles, letting the water flow over his skin. He sighed, and the memories of last night's reading came back: he was in Winterfell, where the hot water poured through the walls like blood through a man's body, even though it was fierce cold outside. Stark, he thought to himself as a smile blossomed across his face. Tony Stark, Lord of Winterfell. He laughed to himself as he wondered what Tony would look like with furs slung around his shoulders and a longsword hanging at his side. He'd probably have a lot of bastards, Steve reflected, Tony wouldn't be Eddard Stark at all, that was for sure...

Two slender arms wrapped themselves around his waist and he jumped as a soft body rubbed itself up against his back and a mouth pressed kisses against his shoulder blades. "Mmm, Tony, why don't you come back to bed?" a soft, husky voice asked seductively. "It's so early, I can't believe you aren't hungover...I've been such a bad girl, you should come back to bed and punish me." A hand with long manicured nails moved down, brushing across his hipbones and wrapping its fingers around his cock, squeezing, stroking, rubbing.

He pushed her hand off with some difficulty - she had a rather firm grip and was holding quite a sensitive part of him -, turned around. The girl's eyes widened as she took in his face. Then she smiled.

"Tony didn't tell me he had such an attractive friend," she whispered, her voice nearly drowned out by the spray of water. "If only I'd known last night..." she said, smiling licentiously up at Steve as her hand darted down again. This time he grabbed her wrist and held it up firmly.

"No," he said, shaking his head. "No."

She raised an eyebrow. "No? But you're already hard, see?"

He looked down. She was right; his cock was jutting from between his thighs, the thatch of dark blonde hair at the base almost black from the water. He frowned, but continued to hold her by the wrist.

"No. I said no," he repeated, letting go. She eyed him curiously, and he blushed, averting his eyes from her body. "Can you please leave?"

She rolled her eyes. "Oh, fine. Hmph, you would think billionaires were better than that, making me wake up to an empty, cold bed and not even leaving a call number? All men are the same," she sighed, but exited the shower all the same. Through the fog of the shower glass, Steve watched as she took a fluffy towel from the rack and wrapped it around herself before leaving the bathroom.

He looked down at his cock, which hadn't softened a single bit during the whole encounter. He sighed before reaching down, wrapping a hand around himself. He stroked softly, almost mechanically, rubbing a thumb across the head on every fifth stroke like clockwork. He imagined dark hair and a smiling mouth that always tasted like cherries, and bit his lip as he came, splattering the shower tiles with smears of white.

He closed his eyes and leaned against the back wall of the shower, allowing the warm spray to cover him as he sobbed silently, his tears mingling with the shower water.

* * *

After he'd finished showering, shaving, and brushing his teeth, Steve left the bathroom in a cloud of steam and walked back to the bed. His hands flew over the sheets, searching for the reader that Tony had lent him. He didn't recall placing it on the nightstand, and so concluded it must have been in the bed somewhere, lost among the pillows and cotton sheets.

He finally found the chrome square under a fold of linen, and picked it up gingerly, hoping he hadn't rolled onto it during the night and broken some of the circuitry inside or whatever it ran on.

As he picked it up, his thumb accidentally pressed the black button on the front and a holograph projected up, much like it had last night. This time, the projection didn't display the main menu, a book, or a search box; instead, the holograph projected a screen that displayed 'Recently Read' and 'Suggested for Tony,' much like a Netflix screen, which he'd been introduced to a few months ago by one of his more affluent friends.

Among The Hobbit and the continuation of the Song of Ice and Fire novels in 'Suggested for Tony,' the other recommendations included "The Velveteen Rabbit," "Where the Wild Things Are," and "The Giving Tree."

* * *

Steve knocked three times before peeking through Tony's bedroom door. Tony wasn't in, and neither was the girl, who must have left directly after the shower encounter.

Crosspost from AO3. Written to Brothers on a Hotel Bed - Death Cab for Cutie

* * *

Steve tentatively entered the room, which smelled like sex, the musky undertones of cologne and the soft floral scent of a woman's perfume adding notes to the air. He placed the reader on the nightstand by Tony's bed, and turned to leave.

As he was leaving, he caught sight of the bed. The sheets were rumpled, the cover in disarray, its sharp creases lost with the activities of the previous night, and there were two distinct depressions in the mattress. Not one.

* * *

Steve found Tony in the hotel restaurant, nursing a hangover and a cup of black coffee. Tony looked up as he sat down beside him. The billionaire's eyes were bloodshot, his hair was messy, and his tie hadn't been knotted properly. Steve chose not to point any of this out, chose not to mention the shower, and instead ordered a plate of eggs and bacon from the waiter standing nearby.

"Um," he said awkwardly through a mouthful of eggs, "thanks for lending me your reader last night. It's a very wonderful design."

Tony smiled, but it did nothing to take the haggard look away from his face. "Of course it's well designed, I did it myself."

"It's very immersive," Steve continued. "It was like I was in a whole different world."

Tony looked morosely into his coffee, twirling the stirrer around idly with his finger.

"Yeah," he said finally. "It's supposed to do that. To make you forget. It's a beautiful thing, forgetting. Makes for great guiltless one night stands. Sorry if I kept you up last night, by the way, she was rather loud, my apologies."

Steve thought about his mother at home, how at the start of this year she'd started replacing him with his late father more and more. He frowned down into his orange juice and kept his thoughts to himself.


	8. An Elevator Honeymoon (Atlanta Part 1)

Crosspost from AO3, written to Pantomime - Imagine Dragons

* * *

Steve's neck hurt from craning all the way back to try and see the top of their hotel or any of the surrounding skyscrapers. It was impossible, and though Steve was no stranger to high-rises, it was still rather awe-inspiring. As Tony stepped out the passenger side of his Mercedes, however, he just took a few glances around and tapped his foot impatiently on the cracked sidewalk until a sharply dressed valet hurried over to park the car.

Tony had been completely silent the entire drive from Orlando to Atlanta, his eyebrows creased and his mouth a tight line across his face. About forty minutes into the seven hour drive, Steve had ventured to ask him what was bothering him, if he wanted to talk about it. Tony had just stared at him for a moment, then turned away to look out his window again without saying a word the entire time. No one could say Steve was inconsiderate; the remaining six hours and twenty minutes he left Tony well enough alone, which seemed to suit the billionaire just fine.

Steve, on the other hand, was bored out of his mind, and by the time they rolled into the Atlanta city limits, he'd already played the Alphabet Game by himself twenty-three times, had given much long, hard thought about the tattoo he wanted to get before he left for South Korea (he thought his name might be a rather practical thing, just in case something horrible happened and they wouldn't be able to positively ID his body just from looks alone), and had picked his brains to see if he knew anything about Korean culture (he didn't, except he'd heard they really enjoyed eating pickled cabbage and raw fish - well, maybe that was Japan, he really had no idea; he thought about asking Tony but the billionaire was still sulking or brooding).

The only time Tony spoke to him throughout the whole drive was to give him directions to the hotel. And even Steve had heard of The Four Seasons; he'd seen the one in New York, with the fancy iron wrought lamps and marble floor in the lobby, dozens of floors all decked out in glass and chrome and aluminum, stretching up as far as the eye could see. He'd often joked with his old high school friend Bucky Barnes that, when he got married, he'd have his honeymoon at the hotel, because one night would be about all he could afford. Bucky had laughed, looked him in the eye, and asked him if he was planning to make a reservation for an elevator or a janitorial closet.

Steve had always answered elevator, always. You had a good view of the surrounding skyscrapers and buildings, and sometimes the fog rolled in over the ocean and draped everything in grey, but you'd be above that, you'd be in heaven and you could watch the sun kiss the horizon in streaks of gold and pink and orange. Their guests could come in and hand them their gifts, and they'd pile them up along a corner of the elevator, because the elevators were positively massive.

Bucky had rooted for janitorial closet. He'd argued that you wouldn't have to really be worried about people walking in while you were consummating the marriage, there would only be the janitor. But all janitors, as Bucky had argued with all of his twenty-nine-year-old worldly logic, could easily be won over with a thermos of Jack Daniels whiskey and a fistful of pin-ups ripped from calendars, magazines, and some of those swimwear catalogues surely didn't hurt either.

Steve smiled fondly as he pulled up to the curb in front of the Four Seasons hotel in Atlanta, Georgia. If only you could see me now, Bucky, he thought with a tinge of nostalgia and regret. I'm going to be staying here in a room for a few nights. Now if that isn't something I wish you could see.

"Mr. Stark!" the valet called out, somewhat breathlessly. "Good to see you back in this part of the country again!"

Tony only fixed the valet with a blank stare as Steve held out the keys for the man to take. Tony remained perfectly motionless as a bellboy hopped around him to the trunk of the Mercedes, taking out their duffels and tossing them onto a golden luggage cart, hurriedly wheeling the bags up to the front door. The car's engine purred to life, and the valet signaled before pulling out into the street, gliding smoothly for a few dozen feet before signaling again and turning into an underground parking lot. Tony had his hands jammed in his pockets and was worrying his lower lip between his teeth, frowning out at the passing traffic.

The valet returned, clutching a pastel blue ticket which he handed to Steve before turning back to Tony. "Is this a trip for business, Mr. Stark?" he asked, arching an inquisitive brow. "Or maybe just for raising company and sales morale, that must be it. I can't imagine the Georgia base would need any more personal appearances, the company seems to be doing quite well if stock prices are any indication." Steve thought the valet looked like an overly enthusiastic dog, panting and foaming at the mouth, eager to please.

"Where's the missus, Mr. Stark?" the valet asked teasingly, craning his head around, to see if perhaps this woman was hiding behind Steve or something. "Decided not to come?"

Tony's frown deepened. He didn't reply, and instead walked towards the hotel entrance, the soles of his shoes clicking briskly across the concrete as he strode off without giving a tip. Steve looked curiously at the valet, who now appeared somewhat disgruntled, having just lost a significantly large tip. He decided not to ask, and apologetically handed the valet a slightly crumpled ten-dollar bill before running off after Tony.

* * *

The ride up to their penthouse suite (Tony certainly spared no expense, or maybe it was just because he was Tony Stark) was beautiful, just as Steve expected. The glass walls of the elevator opened out onto the glowing, blinking lights of the city, sparkling off the chrome support beams in little pinpricks of red, yellow, and white. The night sky was a deep indigo, and from this high up you could just start to make out a speckle of stars blinking from between the wispy clouds. The elevator was spacious, with enough room for at least twenty people and their bags to stand comfortably, and Steve grinned. An elevator honeymoon didn't seem so bad, no, definitely not.

When they exited the elevator, the bellboy was standing outside their room, smiling eagerly, like the valet had. Tony eyed him for a moment before pushing past him, and the boy's face turned quickly to hurt indignation as he glared at Tony's back. Steve frowned before pulling out his wallet and handing the bellboy the only bill he had left, a very crumpled $5 that had seen better days. The bellboy took it, but Steve could hear him muttering about rich people and self-entitlement all the way down the hall.

Tony stood staring out the wall-to-wall windows of the suite, and Steve wondered what he was thinking about.

"Tony," he finally ventured to say, "are you feeling alright?"

Tony didn't reply. The silence was overwhelming.

"I'm going to have dinner and then probably go to bed, I'm exhausted," Steve said. Tony still didn't say anything, and Steve could only take that as acceptance.

"I'll...I guess I'll see you later then, Tony," Steve said, backing out of the room. It was only after the heavy wooden door with gold plating had snapped shut with a soft click that Steve realised he didn't have a key card, the receptionist had given Tony both of them. He considered knocking on the door and asking if Tony could give him one, but decided against it.

* * *

After dinner in the hotel restaurant, Steve wandered over to the adjoining bar. In remembrance of you, Bucky, he thought, as he ordered a Glenfiddich on the rocks. As the amber alcohol wound its way down his throat in small sips and warmed his stomach and throat with soft heat, Steve remembered the day he'd gotten the news.

An officer had stopped by their house one wintry November morning, the frosty grass crunching underneath his standard-issue boots. Steve had darted out eagerly, ready to welcome his friend back home from his eight-month deployment in Afghanistan, but one look at the officer's stern, solemn features stopped him. It wasn't Bucky, and Steve finally took in the rest of the man, from the purple heart pin attached to his chest, to the way he was limping, to the folded American flag he carried in his arms.

"No!" Steve had shouted, his heart leaping into his throat. "No. No. No." As if he said it enough times, it would make it untrue.

The officer looked at him with pity, and extended the flag to Steve along with a small bundle of possessions that Steve figured must have been his. The officer cleared his throat awkwardly; he wasn't the best at delivering bad news. "Look, son, this is the address that Lieutenant Barnes had specified for delivery of his items in case of his disappearance..."

"So...he really is dead, is he?" Steve asked, feeling the tears creep into the corners of his eyes. "That's it, then?"

The soldier sighed. "We didn't find his body, or any remainder of it. I'm not saying exactly that he's dead, because we don't know that, but lots of soldiers die over there, you know, and we can't ID all of the bodies. Bombs, shootings, chemical warfare, stuff like that, it really messes up people. This is just the stuff we found in his bunk. I'm really very sorry, son."

Steve's hands were trembling as he accepted the flag and the small bundle. He wanted the officer to laugh and tell him it was all an elaborate joke, and Bucky would pop out from behind a car, the same old cheery twenty-nine-year-old Bucky that had left with his shirt untucked and his boot laces untied. He'd pop out from somewhere and shout at Steve and tell him how he should have seen his face, he was going to cry, he was twenty-six and twenty-six-year-olds didn't cry, how did he expect to get any girls like that, but that didn't matter, did it, now that Bucky was back and why don't we go and get some Glenfiddich, I haven't had any for months?

The officer laid a heavy hand on Steve's shoulder. "Lieutenant Barnes was a great man, a great soldier. He did a lot for his country. He did a lot for all of us."

Steve's mouth quivered, and he took a deep breath. "What happened to you?" he asked dully, trying to think of anything but Bucky.

The officer looked at him carefully, then shrugged. He bent down, rolled up his left pants leg, so Steve could see the gleam of black metal and plastic. "Hit a mine," the soldier said, almost nonchalantly. "Could have been a lot worse. Only had to get the lower part amputated."

Steve looked at the prosthetic, focusing on the dull gleam of the material. He didn't hear the rest of what the soldier said, and was still staring at the ground when the officer left, his boots crunching across the lawn.

* * *

He still kept Bucky's lighter in his pocket, the one engraved with his name: "James Buchanan Barnes" on the back and a spider on the front, because Bucky's favourite superhero was Spiderman, of course it was, he'd read all of the original comics and had watched the movies at midnight release. Steve had promised him that when he came back from Afghanistan, they'd go and see The Amazing Spiderman with Andrew Garfield, and Bucky had looked back at him as he walked up the stairs to the plane, held up his lighter and tapped at it, a reminder.

Steve rubbed over the engravings now as he sat at the Four Seasons hotel bar, nursing a whiskey and reminiscing. He jumped a bit when a voice came from his left: "Friend of yours?"

He turned to look, and saw the valet from earlier sitting next to him. His hair was ruffled, as if he'd been running his hands through it, his tie had been loosened, and his suit jacket was unbuttoned and hanging loosely around him.

"I'll have what he's having," the valet said to the bartender, who nodded and turned back to fetch another glass and whiskey. No, Steve wanted to say, that's my and Bucky's drink, you can't have that you're not him -

"James Buchanan Barnes, huh?" the valet asked as the bartender handed him his drink and he slid a ten across the table. The same ten Steve had handed him earlier, he could tell by the slight rip near the upper left corner. "A soldier's lighter, I'd be right in presuming. Probably dead. If not dead, disappeared. Good friend of yours. You drank..." - he examined his glass thoughtfully as he took a small sip - "Glenfiddich, is it? You drank this together. Am I right?"

Steve just stared at him before nodding tightly. The valet sighed and stretched, his dress shirt untucking itself from his slacks. He rolled his neck around to alleviate some knots in his shoulders, and the tension eased from his body in small increments.

"How did you know so much?" Steve asked cautiously.

The valet shrugged. "I'm good at guessing. It's not too hard, you try," he said, taking another swallow of whiskey.

Steve ordered another finger of Glenfiddich and took another swallow as the man beside him lit up a cigarette. The heavy scent of smoke wrapped itself around him, and perhaps it was the combination of that, the quiet murmurs of conversation around him, and the quality of the liquor that Steve found his throat loosening and words spilling out.

"You knew Tony earlier, you've met him before," Steve said, the ice clinking around in his glass as he swirled it around thoughtfully. "He stayed here before with a girl, I'm guessing. You called her his missus, so he...was married before? Or he was dating someone before?"

The valet laughed, finished his whiskey and cigarette, and checked his watch. "I would hope he wasn't dating her, I'm rather sure that's illegal across the country."

As the valet stood up to leave, he turned back to Steve. "You were right on almost all counts. All except for one thing. The missus in question was his daughter."


	9. Unfortunately, I Cannot (Atlanta Part 2)

Crosspost from AO3, Written to Feel Real - Deptford Goth

Sorry this chapter is somewhat short, not feeling very well right now.

* * *

The hotel receptionist frowned at Steve's crumpled T-shirt and faded denim jeans and told him that she couldn't give him another key card to the penthouse suite. As Steve walked away, dejected, he wondered if it would have helped if he'd been wearing an expensive suit instead.

"You see, it's nothing personal, it's just the penthouse and its current occupants are very valuable customers and it just wouldn't do for me to go around giving out key cards to everyone who asked," she'd told him before returning to a phone conversation.

"I'm the current occupant," Steve told her, frowning. She examined him with an arched eyebrow, pursed her lips, and Steve could tell she was trying not to laugh. "I'm here with Mr. Stark, call him, ask him."

The receptionist rolled her bright green eyes, but obliged him, her manicured nails tap tapping away on her keyboard, presumably pulling up Tony's cell phone information. "If you'll excuse me," she said to the person on the phone, "I'll be back with you in just a moment."

Her fingers punched in numbers on the telephone, and she held the receiver up to her ear, waiting, waiting, waiting.

"Well, sir," she said, with a sarcastic note placed on the 'sir,' "unfortunately Mr. Stark does not appear to be available for comment at the moment, and so I can neither confirm nor deny that you are truly an acquaintance of his. You'll just have to wait for him to come back, if you truly are a colleague of his."

She turned away from Steve and punched another button on the telephone, resuming her previous conversation and ignoring the desperate look Steve threw across the mahogany reception desk at the back of her head.

* * *

According to Steve's watch, it was nearing close to one-thirty AM, and he was wondering if hotel security would come to kick him out of the hotel corridor and haul him off to a police station for loitering or whatever he was doing. Whatever it was, he was sure it was criminal; fancy people didn't wait outside penthouse doors for someone with a key card to let them in, they'd have their own key card or would be able to talk the receptionist into giving them one.

Steve sat against the wall, his legs stretched out in front of him, and he counted the fleur de lis patterns on the burgundy carpet for the thirteenth time. 156 in his field of view, assuming the corridor was about eight and a half times as long, that would be 1,326 gold leafed patterns in this hall alone. The penthouse was on the top floor, there were forty-nine floors of rooms beneath him, assuming 1,326 fleur de lis on each floor was 66,300. The lobby floor was black marble, from what he recalled, so shiny he could see his reflection in it and he was half afraid someone would scold him for tracking his dirty trainers all over the clean floor. He wondered if the patterns actually were woven with gold thread or just some special, shimmery yellow string.

He'd knocked on the hotel door three hours ago, a sharp, hard rap, three times repeated. He'd tried at twenty minute intervals ever since then, wondering if Tony was asleep and how could he sleep so deeply, did billionaires sleep that much or go to sleep that early? And if Tony was out, he wasn't back yet, and Steve had finally resorted to sitting against the wall in exhausted frustration.

When Tony hadn't appeared at 2:30, Steve resigned himself to the fact that Tony just wasn't coming back. And the carpet was really incredibly comfortable, now that he thought about it. Just for a little bit, he told himself as he lay down on his back next to the penthouse door and closed his eyes, pillowing his head on his arms.

He fell asleep almost instantly and dreamt of her.

"I'll buy you a diamond ring," he told her, laughing as they sat by the Fish Pond at university. She had an organic chemistry textbook cracked open on her lap; multivariable calculus for him. "Or maybe sapphires. They're pretty."

She laughed at him and thrown a packet of notes at her, which he threatened to throw into the pond so the koi could learn the Markovnikov rule also. She leapt at him, grabbing for her notes, and he ended up on his back with her sprawled across him.

He kissed her there, when the cherry blossoms flew through the air with every small puff of wind. She pillowed her head on his broad chest, her dark brown hair spilling across his shirt, and he placed his free hand on the back of her head, running his fingers through her dark curls.

"What do you think about that, Pegs?" he asked, stroking her hair as they lay in the soft, fragrant grass by the pond. "Diamonds? Sapphires? Maybe emeralds, but those are kind of tacky, don't you think?"

She was silent, and Steve could hear the chatter of other students as they walked around them.

When she spoke, her voice was flat and there was no hint of her previous merriment in it. "Well, sir," she said, and there was that sarcastic note again, and dread rose up in Steve's throat, "unfortunately I'm not available for comment, and can neither confirm nor deny any gem preference."

Her eyes were bright green when she looked up at him. "Of course, you wouldn't be able to afford any of that, so why bother, hmm?"

Steve jolted out of sleep with a scream lodged firmly in his throat. The first thing he registered was the smell of cherry, which lingered sickeningly in his nostrils and made him gag. The second thing he registered was the long, slender, upside down pair of legs encased in far-too-high heels that filled his field of vision.

"Hmm?" the woman asked him, and he sat up groggily, rubbing his eyes with the heel of his hands.

"What did you say?" he mumbled, his voice heavy and rough with sleep.

"I said," the woman sounded rather frustrated, "that this isn't a place for beggars like you. I'm surprised you managed to get this far without security seizing you and throwing you out. So if you're looking for a tip, you'd better get out. I don't have anything to give you and neither does he." Here she nodded her head behind her into the room, tossing her long blonde hair over her shoulder. "So go on, get," she snapped, nudging him with the toe of one of her heels.

She sighed in irritation, stepping out. The door began to swing shut silently behind her, but Steve managed to get a toe in the door right before it snapped shut. The woman walked off, tossing her hair in indignation and adjusting her far-too-short skirt, muttering something about "Lord knows the precious Mr. Billionaire needs his beauty sleep, didn't even tip me, Tony Stark can kiss my ass."

Steve slipped into the room quietly. According to his watch, it was just nearing 6 AM, and the sun was just starting to brighten the sky over the horizon, painting the underbellies of clouds with soft pinks and yellows.

Steve was horrified by the sight of the living room. The suite, which had been so elegant earlier, had been defaced. The contents of the minibar were strewn around the room, most of the bottles empty, some still leaking out into amber and clear puddles on the cream carpet. There was shattered glass all over the place, the stems of a few broken champagne glasses lying here and there. The ice bucket was lying on its side, the puddle of water underneath it growing slowly but surely as the ice inside it melted. Steve stepped forward tentatively, and heard a crunching underneath his shoe. Looking down, he found the shattered remains of a champagne bottle - Dom Perignon - and he frowned in distaste as it shot pale bubbles all over the soles of his trainers.

The suite bathroom was no better. Steve could barely see his reflection for all the burgundy, waxy writing on the mirrors and every tiled surface he could find. Clearly the woman had been rather upset, if the scrawled lipstick proclaiming Tony Stark was a bastard and some other words Steve would really rather prefer not to read were any indication. The rolls of toilet paper had been ripped to shreds and thrown all over the bathroom, and towels, all damp (with what, Steve preferred not to think) were strewn all over the floor.

Steve winced as he pushed open the door to Tony's bedroom, hoping that the billionaire inside was still alive and breathing. He was somewhat relieved to find Tony standing in front of the balcony door, a cigar dangling loosely from his fingers. The heavy scent of smoke made Steve cough, but Tony paid no attention to him and only took another puff and blew out a series of perfectly circular smoke rings.

The sheets on Tony's bed were messy, half hanging off the mattress, and the coffee table was littered with the remains of more small bottles of alcohol from the mini bar, along with a few lines of white powder and a tightly rolled up bill.

"Tony, is this...is this cocaine?" Steve asked, looking at the white lines, horrified. When Tony didn't respond, Steve said, "This is illegal! You could get thrown into jail for this!"

When Tony still didn't say anything, Steve walked over to him. Steve took Tony by the shoulders and shook him, hoping to provoke some sort of reaction, but those dark eyes just stared at him, through him, not processing.

"Good God, say something, at least," Steve hissed, tempted to slap the billionaire. "Anything."

"She told me to put a baby in her," Tony mumbled, his words slow and soft and slurred, like coming through a dream. "I can't, I can't, I can't..."

Tony continued murmuring those two words as Steve propelled him towards the bed and forced him to lie down, taking the cigar from his limp fingers and grinding it out in an already overflowing ashtray. The billionaire continued muttering up at the ceiling as Steve tucked him in, as Steve puttered about the room, tidying up a bit, vigorously scrubbing away any and all traces of the cocaine on the glass coffee table, throwing open the balcony windows to get the smoke out of the room.

Steve left the billionaire ensconced in bed, tangled in the sheets, and hesitantly pushed open the door to his bedroom. He breathed a sigh of relief when he saw that it was completely untouched.

He pulled his T-shirt over his head, toed off his shoes, and slipped out of his jeans, leaving them crumpled on the floor, and flopped onto the bed.

He fell asleep almost instantly and dreamt of nothing.


	10. An Ounce of Human Compassion (Atlanta 3)

Crosspost from AO3, written to The A Team - Ed Sheeran

* * *

Tony woke up with a killer headache and a cottony feel to the roof of his mouth. He swore he could taste his tongue, could feel every individual taste bud. The early afternoon sunshine was spilling through the gauzy white curtains on the other side of the room, blowing gently in the soft breeze. The girl he'd had last night was long gone, not that he remembered much of her. Long, blonde hair, knock-off Jimmy Choos with far too high of a heel, a mini skirt that was criminally short. He remembered her getting angry at him, rolling on top of him, whispering hot and breathy in his ear that she wanted him to put a baby in her.

"A billionaire's baby, can you imagine? She'll never want for anything," she'd said, laughing coarsely as she ground down roughly, her hips smacking into his own.

And maybe it had been the cocaine, maybe it had been the combination of liquor, clear and coloured churning inside his stomach, but he had shoved her off him, sat up, his heart racing, his mind moving miles a minute.

"No," he'd said, and to his horror had found tears rising unbidden to the corners of his eyes. "No."

She had looked at him in disbelief, looked at his rapidly softening cock pointedly. "No? What do you mean no?"

She climbed on top of him again, but he'd pushed her away before burying his face in his hands. "No," he said, and oh yes, those were tears choking up his throat, clouding his eyes, dampening his fingertips.

"Just go. Please."

The mattress rose a bit as she stood up, and he heard rustling behind him as she pulled on her clothes. She cleared her throat, and he looked up from the shelter of his hands as she stood in front of him, one hand on her waist, one stockinged foot tap tapping impatiently. She met his gaze, held out her hand, curled her fingers.

He sighed, pinching the bridge of his nose and reaching over to the nightstand for his wallet. He plucked out a $50 and handed it to her. Her fingers curled around it quickly, almost as if afraid he'd take it back.

"Leave," he snapped at her, anger and nausea rising up his throat. She rolled her eyes and tap tapped out, her silk feet brushing gently over the carpet. He heard her puttering about the bathroom, running the faucet, probably redoing her makeup to get ready for somebody else. A few moments later, Tony heard the door opening, heard her talking to someone whose voice he couldn't quite make out.

He hadn't asked her name, and he wondered if it was because he was afraid or indifferent. He didn't want to know, he decided after a few moments as he plucked a cigar from the hospitality box near the mini bar and walked over to the balcony, lighting it on the way.

The smoke trail followed him like a second shadow and stained the pinks and golds of early morning with grey.

* * *

He peeked into Steve's room, wincing a bit as his head throbbed with every step. Steve was lying face down on the bed, a pillow clutched to his chest, not even having bothered to get under the sheets. His clothes were lying in a rumpled pile on the floor next to his shoes. One of the trainers was lying on its side, and for the first time Tony could clearly see the holes and ratty edges of the rubber soles.

Steve's mouth was slightly open, and Tony could see the dark blue hues of five o'clock shadow creeping across Steve's jawline. Tony hobbled to his room, clutching his head and wincing. He grabbed the cover off his bed, frowning in distaste as he stepped carefully around shards of broken glass from mini liquor bottles.

Steve's back rose and fell as he took deep, even breaths, and Tony envied his peace. He gently tucked the down comforter over Steve's shoulders, and Steve mumbled something and hugged the pillow closer to his chest. Tony patted Steve's back over the comforter, once, twice, until Steve's breathing evened out again.

Tony quietly tiptoed out of the room and closed Steve's bedroom door behind him. Mincing his way around all the shattered glass, he hung the 'Do Not Disturb' sign on Steve's bedroom door handle.

He sipped a paper cup of tap water in the bathroom and read the burgundy scrawls on the mirror. He reached out, tried to rub it off, but his fingerprints only left smears across the mirror and he pulled away his fingers to find them coated with waxy lipstick. Tony frowned in distaste and scrubbed his hands vigorously, crumpling up the paper cup and tossing it in the trash. His dark brown leather shoes kicked up small, snowy drifts of toilet paper shreds as he walked out of the bathroom, picked up his wallet, and left a tip for the housekeeping, tucked neatly under the glass paperweight on the desk.

* * *

Tony walked the two and a half miles to the Georgia Aquarium, his eyes covered with a pair of Dolce and Gabbana sunglasses. Everyone was talking far too loudly, he thought, businessmen on their mobiles chatting about their next big multimillion-dollar deal; tourists flocking around tour guides who read them things from a catalogue in a bored monotone; teenage girls with shorts that were far too short, shades that were too big for their face, and fancy drinks from Starbucks that they would probably end up throwing away after one or two sips.

And there was the aquarium looming into view, the big G in Georgia shaped with a fish tail, the pale blue glass glimmering with reflected sunlight. School children, all dressed up in plain white dress shirts and sweater vests and blazers, shrieked in excitement and pressed their chubby fingers to the blue-green glass, leaving smudges all over the panes. Their teachers stood around, happy young women who still wore plaid skirts above their knees and light summer sweaters, clutching rulers with their classroom names on them and smiling cheerfully at their students.

Tony queued up amidst the sea of children to purchase a ticket. When he got up to the counter, the bored student volunteer snapped her bubblegum at him and asked him how many tickets would he be buying and would he be purchasing a membership today it was only eighty dollars for an all year access pass -

"Two tickets, one adult, one child," Tony said, opening his wallet and then stopping. "I mean, one adult ticket. That's it. No child ticket."

The cashier eyed him suspiciously before taking his twenty and punching it into the cash register with loud button snapping that seemed over the top. She pushed his printed ticket across the counter to him along with his change.

He grasped the slip of paper in his hand and looked down at it, eyes scanning the text. "September 19th, 2013, one adult ticket," it proclaimed in type 14 Courier font. The ticket was a pastel blue colour and felt slippery between his fingers, and slid easily out of his hand as the ticket taker machine ate it up greedily, gobbling out a receipt that told him to have a nice day and to visit again soon.

The light inside was filtered blue from the glass windows above his head, and Tony craned his neck back to look at the giant model of the beluga whale that still hung on the ceiling, suspended by steel cables. It cast a large shadow over the floor, and around him, children laughed and pointed up to it, chattering eagerly amongst themselves.

"Daddy!" a little girl shouted from behind him, and Tony almost turned around out of habit. He caught himself at the last second, right as the little girl ran past him, blonde ponytail streaming out behind her as she ran across the aquarium lobby tiles. "It's a whale!" she gasped, pointing up at the model.

Her father, a tall blonde man wearing an old, faded T-shirt came over, scooped her up into his arms, and picked her up. Her smile matched his, and Tony felt his heart wrench as he turned away.

He walked through the hordes of children, parents, teachers, students, and lovestricken teenage couples holding hands and kissing in the shadows of the Penguins from Antarctica exhibit. He walked through the whole aquarium, looking at each and every tank, looking for each and every animal.

He stood still in front of the octopus exhibit, straining his eyes to try and find the animal. The plaque in front of the tank proclaimed it as Thaumoctopus mimicus, a camouflage octopus that could hide itself as a lion fish, or a sea snake, or a flat fish. Children swarmed around him, peering through the dark water, laughing and pointing at rocks, at moving strands of seaweed that they mistakenly thought were tentacles.

He leaned against the thick glass, watching his breath fog up the surface, and closed his eyes. Tony listened to the soft, deep sound of water gurgling, the dark blue light playing across his face.

As the tour of schoolchildren moved to the next room, Tony opened his eyes and peered through the glass once more. The octopus squeezed itself out of a tiny niche in a rock and swam right up to the glass, its eye staring at him, almost curiously. Tony placed his hand up against the tank's surface, his palm and fingers casting large smears across the glass. The octopus, in presumable disgust, swam away to the opposite side of the tank.

A gaggle of small girls, their hair braided and bound with butterfly pins, ran by him and pressed their hands up against the glass, calling to their parents to come and see the octopus.

"Can you make it ink?" one of the little girls asked, looking hopefully at her mother, who smiled indulgently.

"You wouldn't want to scare the octopus, would you sweetie?" she asked, bending down and pressing a kiss to her daughter's forehead. "He's probably scared enough already, with you lot gaggling at him and tapping the glass. He must feel very frightened and alone."

The little girl frowned a moment in consideration before turning to her friends and pulling their hands away from the glass. "Don't tap on the glass!" she said imperatively. "You'll scare him!"

Tony watched the trio of girls and their mothers leave the room, chattering happily. He turned back to the octopus tank after a few moments; one of their hands had created a smudge over his own, and he idly traced the small palm, the skinny fingers, and sighed.

* * *

When Steve finally woke up, it was half past seven, and Tony was nowhere to be found. He sat up in bed, the down comforter slipping down his shoulders. He yawned and stretched before hopping out of bed and tugging on his jeans and shirt from the floor.

Steve wondered if this was what fancy people hotels did for you, where the housekeeping was kind and motherly and would throw a blanket over you if you hadn't been bothered to wrap yourself in one before you fell asleep.

Tony wasn't in the suite's living room, nor in his bedroom or the bathroom when Steve walked out, fully dressed. Housekeeping certainly was efficient, he mused. The carpet had been cleaned completely, and the scent of clean linen was still heavy in the air. All the shards of glass had been swept up and removed, the bathroom mirrors were free of lipstick, and Tony's bedroom looked neat and pristine, the king-sized mattress done up with new white sheets, pressed close and tight to the corners.

Steve wondered if it had all been a hideously bad dream. The cocaine, the alcohol, the escort, everything.

While he was pondering this, the suite door opened and Tony stepped in. He caught Steve's eye, and had the good graces to look the slightest bit ashamed. Steve felt anger bubbling up inside him, and he curled the fingers of his right hand into a fist, hoping he would be able to refrain from punching Tony.

"Look," Tony said, "about last night -"

Steve cut him off before he continue. "Mr. Stark," he said, his tone clipped, "I might just be a poor boy from Brooklyn, but I won't be your maid. I'm not going to clean up your cocaine and whatever else you're doing, I'm not going to air out your room because you've been chain smoking, and I'm sure as hell not going to escort your, your whores out when you've finished with them."

Tony opened his mouth to speak, but Steve continued on his tirade.

"You know, I thought you were a different person," Steve snapped. "Your company makes all this good stuff to help people, to be useful to them, hell, you have a daughter. I thought you'd be capable of at least an ounce of human compassion."

Tony just gaped at him.

"You know what, this job is only about driving you places, right?" Steve said, gesturing wildly with his hands. He couldn't remember the last time he'd been so upset. "I don't need to be your maid, I don't need to be your friend, and I sure as hell don't need to be your wingman. Seems like you've got that all covered."

Steve pushed past Tony, who was standing stock still in the living room. He flung open the penthouse door and stood in the doorway for a moment, looking back.

"I don't need housekeeping or the hotel's maids or whatever to throw blankets over me," Steve finished. He gestured around to the hotel room. "I don't need this. I don't need any of this."

He slammed the door shut behind him, and Tony numbly walked over to the living room couch, sinking down into the soft cushions and burying his face in his hands.

"Had," Tony corrected, though Steve had long left. "I had."

He pulled out his phone and swiped his finger across the screen. He tapped something on the phone before holding it up to his ear.

"Pepper?" he said. "Pepper, can we talk?"

"What is it, Mr. Stark?" she asked, her voice coming over a bit scratchy over the telephone wires. "How can I be of assistance?"

"Can we talk about Emily?" he asked, his voice breaking.

Pepper was silent for a long time, and Tony wondered if she'd hung up on him. When she spoke again, her voice was shaky, like she was struggling not to cry.

"I know it's been a while," Tony murmured, tears tracking down his cheeks. "I know, Pepper, shh, shh, don't cry, please don't cry."

He and Pepper talked until the early hours of the morning, and he fell asleep with her voice in his ear.


	11. Answer (Chicago, Illinois Part 1)

Crosspost from AO3, written to Burial - Miike Snow.

* * *

The silence between them stretched long and unforgiving as the hot asphalt beneath the Mercedes' tires. The early October sunshine beat down brisk and hot onto the Mercedes' black exterior and spilled across Tony's lap, stretching fingers along the inseam of Steve's faded jeans. Steve's mouth was a tight line, and he held the steering wheel rigidly, his knuckles tensing white occasionally. Tony opened his mouth a few times before closing it abruptly, swallowing back his words, his casual conversation, his confused apologies.

The rest of their time in Atlanta had been spent avoiding each other. And Tony had tried, really he had, leaving Steve little sticky notes on his bedroom door handle inviting him to go to a museum, to go to the Fox Theatre and catch a Broadway show, but his messages always went unanswered and Steve walked by in stony silence, his expression grim and determined, as if he wanted nothing to do with Tony past the bare minimum the job required. Steve didn't spend his days in the hotel, and Tony wondered where he was going, what he was doing, if he was at least enjoying himself a little bit.

He knew he wasn't, that was for sure, the guilt racing up his spine and wrapping itself around his heart with cold squeezes that had him sitting up in the middle of the night and rushing to Steve's bedroom, his fingers curling around the cold knob, ready to fling open the door to make sure Steve was still there. He stopped himself each time, forcing his fingers to uncurl, to release the doorknob, convinced himself that Steve was still there without seeing. As Tony stepped back into the shadows of the suite living room, staring at the panels of the white wood, he began to wonder if this was what religion felt like.

The gods are cruel, he thought to himself as he stared forlornly at Steve's bedroom door, praying, hoping, dreading the moment Steve would open the door. They always are, no matter what language the book is written in.

* * *

Steve had been driving for seven hours straight, gritting his teeth and squeezing his fingers around the wheel occasionally. The sun bouncing off the highway created heat haze in the air amidst the green and brown patchwork fields along the road to Chicago. Beside him in the passenger seat, Tony looked out the window and sighed. The billionaire's fingers curled absentmindedly in the grey twill of his pants, bunching the fabric up around his thighs every once in a while.

Steve squinted, scrubbed at his eyes with the heel of one hand while he steered the vehicle with the other. He was incredibly bored, he realised, and if Tony had decided to say anything then, he wouldn't have minded. Truthfully, he was feeling rather guilty about snapping at Tony; the billionaire's life choices were his own, his money was his own, and if he wanted to spend it on expensive cigars and illegal drugs and call girls, that was his own decision. Steve didn't agree with any of that, and couldn't imagine spending that sort of money on useless, pretty things.

But Tony didn't say anything, and Steve found it difficult to fill the void between them with a simple sentence, so he didn't.

* * *

Eleven hours, three gas stops, and two bathroom breaks later, the Mercedes rolled into the Chicago city limit. The Chicago skyline broke over the horizon, its buildings shooting straight and true into the air in glitters of steel and glass and concrete. The cars in the distance were tiny, sparkly beetles skittering across the winding ribbon of avenue, curving down to kiss the lake shore with tiny blinks of headlights. The purples and blues of twilight were dripping down the sky, and Steve had to bite the inside of his cheek to keep himself from falling asleep at the wheel. The tiny pinpricks of pain and the sweet metal tang of blood in his mouth from a particularly hard chew had him sitting up straight and squirming in his seat.

Beside him, Tony leaned against the window, his breath slightly fogging up the glass, his chest rising and falling evenly. His fingers were limp against his thighs, but the twill already had creases and wrinkles in it that would have to be ironed out.

* * *

At a red light surrounded by skyscrapers, Steve reached out and placed a hand on Tony's leg. The warmth and strong corded muscle beneath the fabric surprised Steve; clearly Tony wasn't one of those lazy billionaires, and he most certainly didn't skip leg day.

He swallowed, his mouth suddenly dry, before shaking Tony awake. Tony jumped and Steve could feel the muscles in his thighs clenching and contracting as he woke up with a gasp. Tony's dark eyes were unfocused behind his glasses as he turned to look at Steve.

"What is it?" he asked, his voice clouded and slurred with sleep. "Are we here already?"

"Yeah," Steve said, sitting back and letting go of Tony's knee. If the billionaire minded, he didn't say anything. "Yeah. We're here."

* * *

Soft, fat snowflakes had started to drift down from the sky by the time Steve pulled into a spot at the curb by the Hilton Regency. He fed the greedy grey meter with silvery quarters that seemed to stick to his fingers, and he shivered as little flurries of snow kicked up from the cars passing down the street. Tony had already gone on ahead with the bags, and Steve found himself staring at the strong line of his shoulders as he left.

Once the meter beeped, a proclamation that it was full, Steve looked up into the sky. His breath came out in frosty little puffs that rose up from his mouth like smoke, white roses against a rapidly deepening sky. The snowflakes floated gently down and hooked themselves into his eyelashes, eyebrows, threading icy fingers through his hair.

Steve wasn't a stranger to snow; he'd seen it many times during Brooklyn winters, had always been delighted when school would have to be cancelled because the snow drifts were too high for the snow plows to push to the side and no one could get to school. His mother would bundle him up in three layers of wool coats that would all get soaked through within minutes, would wrap his tiny hands in mittens, and would push him out the front door to make snow angels and snowmen.

More often than not, the snow would already have piled up during the night into drifts waist high. The snow was usually already dirty and slushy with dirt and grit from the road, but Steve laughed and pretended that he was a space explorer - it was cold in space, his daddy had said so. And his daddy was super smart, so he was always right. Joseph Rogers always had an answer for everything, but he'd left so many questions unanswered when he just dropped dead of a heart attack all those years ago.

Steve sighed, a cloud of steam billowing from his chest. He made icy footprints in brand new snow as he turned his footsteps to follow Tony.

* * *

Once their bags were safely ensconced in their room, Steve was ready to flop down on the bed and go directly to sleep, but Tony seemed to have other ideas. He wriggled his toes in the carpet, looking up at Steve when he thought Steve wasn't looking; Tony opened his mouth unsurely a few times only to shut it abruptly; he looked from side to side of the hotel room, eyes tracing the gold filigree that ran through the fibre of the walls, until finally Steve sighed.

"What is it?" Steve asked. Tony froze in his tracks and looked for all the world like a deer caught in the steady stare of high beams. "You can talk to me, you know."

"I was going to ask you if you wouldn't mind coming to get a cup of hot chocolate with me?" Tony asked, his eyebrows knitting and his mouth pursing, like he was ready for Steve to yell at him again. "If you're not too tired? I'd...like to discuss what happened in Atlanta."

Steve frowned. What was there to discuss, he wondered. Was he considering firing Steve? That thought sent a spike of adrenaline surging through his bloodstream, and he fervently prayed to God that that wouldn't be the case. He needed the money, his mother needed the money, she was getting worse and worse every day...When he'd called a few weeks ago, she'd shrieked at him that he was only a devil impersonating her beloved boy and was trying to tempt her into sin. The live-in nurse he'd hired had had to wrest the telephone receiver away from his mother and had shouted to her that Sarah was fine, she was eating well, she really did like walks in the park, before slamming down the phone and Steve was left with the persistent drone of a dial tone in his ear.

No. No. If Tony had wanted to fire him, he would have just done it in Atlanta, Steve convinced himself. Or at any point before here, he thought.

But that nagging voice in his ear whispered that Tony had probably wanted to fire him in Chicago so that he'd have an airport to fly him back. Easy disposal, the voice breathed. He could murder you here, that's what eccentric billionaires with time on their hands do, and Chicago has high murder rates, no one would miss you...

He shook his head to clear the voice from his mind, and turned back to Tony with a forced smile on his face.

"Sure. That's fine. Let's go have some hot chocolate."

* * *

The Ghirardelli chocolate shoppe was hot and stuffy, and the air was sweetened with the heavy scent of chocolate and caramel. The store was brightly lit, and the fluorescent yellow lamps overhead sparkled off the bright pinks, blues, and greens of chocolate wrappers. Plastic cellophane bags of candies crinkled as children gripped them in their hands and shook them at their parents. Sundaes and milkshakes traveled around the room, carried by smiling waitresses in old-school white-and-black-striped dresses with cinched-in waists.

Tony ordered two hot chocolates swirled with caramel and cinnamon, and when their cups came, steaming hot, handed one to Steve. Steve blew through the tiny mouth hole of the lid, blowing the fragrant steam away before taking a tentative sip.

The chocolate flooded his mouth thickly, coating his teeth and tongue and throat with sweetness. Tony wasn't drinking his hot chocolate, Steve noted, only cupping it in his hands as he dragged Steve outside into the softly snowing night.

Their feet crunched in the new film of snow outside the shoppe, and steam curled from their mouths and cups as they walked.

Tony led them to Hyde Park, the trees dark and their black branches covered with thin blankets of frost. By the giant fountain in the park, Tony turned to Steve.

He opened his mouth to talk, but right as he began to speak, a woman shuffled past them, her head down, her feet kicking up small swirls of snow and ice as she clutched her ragged blanket closer around her shoulders. She was young, maybe early twenties or late teens, and her cheekbones were harshly pronounced, her lips and skin blue with cold.

Steve watched as Tony turned to the woman, handed her his hot chocolate. "For you," Tony said. "You look like you could use it."

The woman looked at him suspiciously, but accepted the paper cup gratefully. Tony rolled his jacket off one arm, then the other, and handed her his coat.

"Why are you doing this?" she asked, still clutching the cup of chocolate like she was afraid he was going to take it back.

Tony shrugged. "It's cold tonight."

A flake landed on the tip of her nose. "Yes, it is," she agreed. "Winter's coming in." She clutched the coat tight around her shoulders. "Thank you."

Tony smiled, nodded as he tightened the coat around her, keeping her warm.

Steve watched, sipped his hot chocolate, and as the woman shuffled away with soft crunchy sounds and Tony turned back to him, decided that whatever Tony wanted to say about Atlanta wasn't worth hearing. He'd already forgiven him that.

He took Tony by the hand - his palms were freezing, Steve noticed - and led him back to the hotel. He sighed, his breath coming out in a swirl of hot steam, and he wondered if his father would have an answer for the tightening he felt in his chest.


	12. Information (Chicago, Illinois Part 2)

Crosspost from AO3, written to The Best Day of my Life - American Authors

This chapter does NOT contain sex. Just naked shenanigans.

* * *

They reached the Hilton right as Steve became aware of the fact that he had held Tony's hand all the way back from Hyde Park. He awkwardly let it go, but his fingers seemed frozen shut, and his hand refused to open. Tony didn't seem to mind this development one bit, and if the valets and bellboys and receptionists were disgusted by the hand-holding, none of them said anything and Steve managed to get the billionaire back to the room unscathed.

Well, unscathed was a relative term. Steve was used to hearty Brooklyn winters where the chill blew in through the roof and the cracks in the plaster walls and came in under the door. Tony, on the other hand, had probably been blessed with central heating his whole life, and was shivering as a result. Tony's perfectly white teeth were chattering violently, and frost clung to his dark eyelashes long after they'd stepped into the hotel.

The instant the room door snapped shut behind them with a soft click, Tony wrapped his arms tightly about himself, curling into himself and shuddering as he tried to get warm. Steve felt a laugh bubbling up in his chest - Tony did look rather silly - but the billionaire's lips were a somewhat worrisome shade of pink blue and that certainly couldn't have been good. For how dapper they looked, Tony's sweater vest and dress shirt combos couldn't have been very warm; Steve could have sworn he would be able to trace the goosebumps dappling Tony's arms through the thin cotton of his sleeves.

"Here, stay here," Steve said, draping a blanket around Tony's spasming shoulders. "I'll go run a bath for you."

The water splashed into the tub, and Steve ripped open a small packet of lavender-scented bath salts, which hissed and steamed and coated the surface of the water with a thin film of purple bubbles. He cautiously ran his hand under the stream of lukewarm water; he didn't want to send Tony into a state of shock if he was truly going into a hypothermic state.

Once the tub was full, Steve stood up, patting his hands dry on the thighs of his jeans, and went back out to the bedroom to fetch Tony. Tony was lying down on the bed, still shivering and staring off blankly into space.

"Come on, you big lump," he said fondly, heaving Tony up and letting him lean against his shoulder as he looped one of Tony's limp arms around his neck.

"'M not a lump, I work out," Tony muttered in a disgruntled tone, his eyebrows knotting as he pouted. The pout was really rather quite convincing - clearly the billionaire was not above using facial expressions to get what he wanted - and Steve laughed as he half-carried, half-dragged Tony to the tub.

Tony stood in front of the tub, looking forlornly down at the water, refusing to let go of the blanket that Steve had thrown across him earlier. Steve crossed his arms and arched an eyebrow at him.

"Well, go on, get in," he said, gesturing towards the bath. "It's only getting colder the longer you wait."

When Tony still didn't move, Steve sighed and ran his hands exasperatedly through his hair. He walked over to where Tony was standing, placed his hands on his hips.

"To take a bath, one has to get undressed first," he quoted. "If the patient is unresponsive, it is recommended to talk to them using a soft, gentle voice while carefully removing their clothes." It had been years since he'd picked up a nursing textbook - or any textbook for that matter - but Steve still remembered every sentence clearly as if he had studied it the day before last.

He carefully threaded the buttons through their respective buttonholes, unbuttoning the shirt at Tony's throat and the tiny pearl buttons at his wrists.

"Arms up," he said gently. The blanket fell to the floor in a soft rustle as Tony obediently held his arms up and Steve carefully tugged off the argyle vest, the grey and maroon diamonds soft and warm against his palms. He finished unbuttoning the white dress shirt underneath and gently slipped it off Tony's arms, smoothing his hands along the strong lines of his shoulders and marveling at the silky clearness of the skin. His own shoulders were marred, freckled with scars from sun burns, from falling debris during his stint as a construction worker in lower Manhattan, spotted with the faint scars of a particularly bad case of chicken pox he'd had as a child.

The white cotton shirt fluttered to the floor to join the sweater vest as Steve reached up to where Tony's dark hair curled against the nape of his neck and fiddled with the tiny clasp of the silver chain.

Tony's hand shot up, and with a strength Steve hadn't been expecting, clasped one of Steve's wrists.

"Don't," he muttered quietly. "Don't take it off. Please."

"It'll rust," Steve protested, but his hands fell away all the same.

"It won't," Tony said. "It's not any of that cheap nickel shit. It's titanium. You know, the stuff they use in aeroplanes and construction and things like that. Very durable stuff."

"Of course it is," Steve murmured. "Of course. Do you think you can handle it from here?" he asked. "You know how it goes, unbutton your pants, take them off, take off your socks, climb in the tub, you know the drill."

"I suppose so," Tony said, rubbing the back of his neck absentmindedly, as if subconsciously checking that the necklace's clasp was secure.

If the patient expresses reluctance, the book had said, sometimes the practitioner's presence nearby is comforting and will help them accomplish tasks. Steve had read and reread that chapter on bedside manners and care over and over again, trying to convince himself that he wouldn't end up the typical doctor. As his mother spiraled ever downwards and her brain became knotted with tangles and plaques and her memories became foggier and foggier, he'd seen countless doctors pass over her chart with sniffs and lying pity written in their eyes.

I'll never be like that, he'd told Peggy. And Peggy had looked at him, and she'd smiled and patted his arm. "No, darling, of course you won't be like that," she'd reassured him. "You'll be much better."

And he had been much better, he thought bitterly as he watched Tony shrug out of his dark denim jeans. He'd held her hand while she died, had told her that everything was going to be okay, had laughed and told her that when she woke up it would all be a bad dream and that he'd still love her even if she had those horrid scars. She'd smiled and his fingers had slipped out of her own as she closed her eyes.

They'd pronounced her dead on arrival and she'd been taken away, zipped up into a black duffel bag, just another statistic for the police department and another body for the morticians to try to make beautiful again. He'd done a good job, too, Steve reflected as Tony slipped carefully into the bath. She'd looked like she was sleeping, with a laugh about the corners of her mouth. She looked like she could have been at the Fish Pond, falling asleep while poring over a textbook.

The black wood of the casket was unforgiving, and her parents' stares had burnt into his back as he leaned over her and brushed the gentlest of kisses against her cheek. The mortician had dressed her in a soft white dress, and Steve had had the crazy urge to laugh. This wasn't his Pegs, no, it certainly wasn't, she never wore her hair in curls, said they drove her insane -

"Like what you see?" Tony's voice cut through Steve's thoughts, and he shook himself back to the present. Tony had recovered a bit of colour in his eyes and mouth, and was smiling cheekily at Steve where he sat on the closed lid of the toilet.

Steve frowned over at Tony, who was splashing about in the tub like a small child. The ring bounced happily on its chain, twinkling and sparkling under the soft fluorescent lights.

"I'm just here to make sure you don't go have spasms and drown yourself," Steve explained. Tony just rolled his eyes. "You could have died of frostbite and then where would I be?"

"I guess you'd just have to drive my dead body back to New York," Tony said nonchalantly. "You could get Pepper to dress me when you got there, because I assume I'd be ravaged - sexually, of course - all the way back there." He said this last with such a ferocious waggle of his eyebrows that Steve couldn't help but laugh.

He crawled across the tiles, rested his chin in his hands as he placed his elbows on the porcelain of the tub's edge. Tony grinned at him and wriggled to one side of the tub, patting the empty space beside him.

"Plenty of room for two, Mr. Rogers," he said, grinning.

Steve rolled his eyes. "Is this how a billionaire picks up women?"

Tony snorted. "No, we usually beckon them with Bennies folded between our fingers. This, however," - he gestured down to himself; the thin film of bubbles had started to pop, and Steve found himself staring down directly into Tony's crotch, he was rather...well-off and clean-shaven, which impressed Steve to no end - "is how billionaires get men."

Steve just scoffed and reached into the tub to pull the chain. The water swirled down in a vortex amidst Tony's laughs.

* * *

Tony bounced eagerly on the edge of his bed, his eyes bright and his dark hair curling around his ears. He was wrapped in only a white terrycloth bathrobe. He wolf-whistled as Steve stepped into the bedroom, a towel wrapped around his waist and rivulets of water dripping down his chest.

"Hey, hot stuff, do a turn," Tony said with a grin as he twirled his finger around the air. "Yeah, you work that ass," Tony hooted, laughing as Steve bent over, clutching the towel tight to his waist as he rummaged through his duffel bag for clean clothes.

Against his better judgment, Steve turned to Tony. He felt that crazy urge to laugh again, like he had all those years ago at Peggy's funeral, but this time there weren't any judgmental stares to burn their way between his shoulder blades.

And maybe it was the hot chocolate, maybe it was tasting the snowflakes on his tongue, maybe it was the homeless woman and how she'd clutched Tony's expensive coat around her shoulders. Maybe it was all of those things together, because Steve didn't really have a good explanation for what happened next.

He whipped the towel off, rolled it up, snapped it teasingly at Tony. The wet towel made a soft schlup sound as it cracked against Tony's calf. Tony laughed and retaliated by throwing a down pillow at Steve's head. Pillows went flying through the air along with towels and the belt off Tony's bathrobe.

And Steve really had no idea how he'd managed to pin Tony to the bed, but he was suddenly, horribly aware of the compromising position he'd just put them in. The diamonds around Tony's neck winked up at him, rising and falling and twinkling with every breath that Tony took. The billionaire himself was staring up at Steve with laughter crinkling the corners of his eyes.

"Oh, my God," Steve gasped, quickly rolling off Tony and desperately trying to find something to cover himself with; a throw pillow would have to do. "Oh, my God. I'm so sorry."

Beside him, Tony sat up, clearly unfazed by his nakedness, and Steve was trying not to stare, it was hideously unprofessional, but he couldn't help himself, it was right there...

Tony scoffed when he caught the direction of Steve's gaze. "Oh, please, it's not like you don't know what it looks like, you have a perfectly good working one yourself, or so the stories say." He looked pointedly at the throw pillow resting across Steve's thighs. "And you started it. Wet towel snap. Classic manoeuvre."

Steve had the good graces to blush.

"You had fun." Tony examined the back of his hand nonchalantly as he stated this, like a fact. "You're not always so prim and proper all the time. That's interesting, Mr. Rogers. Very interesting."

After a few moments, when neither of them moved, Tony finally sighed and ran a hand through his dark hair. "Well, since I'm clearly not about to be ravaged at the present moment, what would you like to talk about?" He rolled himself over so he was lying on his stomach, kicking his feet in the air and resting his head in his cupped palms. "Come on, I said I would talk about what happened in Atlanta, didn't I? Aren't you interested in hearing all about a billionaire's worst secrets? Like a private issue of TMZ, just for you."

Steve had absolutely no clue what TMZ was. Teenage Mutant Zebras? No, no, that couldn't have been it...

"No," Steve said, considering. "I'm not that interested in hearing about your private life. I mean, obviously you have some issues you need to work out, and I'm not here to judge you about anything. I'm sorry about the way I snapped at you back in Georgia, but I mean, you're not even thirty yet, I don't think you should just go throwing away your life on pretty girls and illegal drugs..."

"Ought I to throw it away on pretty boys, then?" Tony asked, arching an eyebrow at Steve. "And drugs are so much less fun when they're legal, you know what I'm saying?"

Steve had no idea what he was saying.

"No," he said again, slowly this time. "I just think that you have a lot of potential to do really great things, and I appreciate that person much more. I really like the person I saw in the park today. I don't like the Tony Stark that trashed a $400 a night hotel room so much."

Tony nodded. "That's understandable. It won't happen again."

Steve folded his hands over the throw pillow placed haphazardly across his thighs. It was so quiet in the hotel room, Steve swore he could hear the snow falling outside, gathering in tiny piles on the iron wrought table and chairs on the balcony.

"Hey, Tony, are you married?" he asked as Tony rolled over again and the diamonds winked up at him again. Tony looked at him upside down, his mouth slightly open.

"No, I'm not," he said, and Steve was really getting very good at ignoring the dark shadow lying across Tony's left thigh. "I almost was, once."

"To who?" Steve asked, lying down also. The down coverlet was warm and soft against his back, and he found himself struggling to stay awake.

"I almost married Pepper once," Tony admitted quietly, and wriggled closer to Steve. Steve tried to convince himself that this was a totally platonic moment, that the fact that they were both naked and lying on a hotel bed didn't really mean anything. The tightening feeling in his chest made him hyper aware of every one of Tony's movements, every shift of weight on the soft mattress.

"Pepper's a great lady," Tony continued, and his voice was right by Steve's ear now. "And I love her. I think I still do, kind of. But we had something that was holding us together, and when that thing disappeared, so did we, I guess. It wasn't my best moment."

Steve turned his head. Tony was lying beside him, staring up at the ceiling.

"Is that the ring you were going to give her?" Steve asked, looking at the diamonds winking in the hollow of Tony's throat.

"Oh, this?" Tony said, fingering the silver chain the ring hung on. "No. This was my daughter's ring. I had it made especially for her. That scar on your side, what's it from?"

When Steve didn't answer, Tony rolled over and propped his head up on one hand as he looked at Steve. "This is how the sharing of information works. You ask one question, I answer. Then we trade off. That's how it works."

Steve scoffed. "I think the value of questions asked also ought to be equal."

"Oh, is that how you'd like to play?" Tony asked, laughing. "Very well then. What if I make the deal a little bit sweeter for you, then?"

Steve propped himself up on his forearms and caught Tony's eye. "I'm listening."

And just like that, Tony was the one pinning him down to the mattress. His hands pressed down into Steve's chest, and the air was knocked out of Steve's lungs.

"What are you doing?" Steve asked, incredulously. He tried to sit up, but Tony had a pretty good lock around his waist.

Tony only laughed, and Steve tried to ignore the way Tony's thighs slid against his own. He was horrified to find heat curling in the pit of his stomach and tried to quell the blush that was spilling itself across his cheeks, to no avail.

"I'm sweetening the deal, my pretty boy," Tony said with a grin.

He bent his head down and pressed his mouth against Steve's. Steve, in shock, gasped. A rookie mistake, Tony would tell him later, as his tongue wound its way behind Steve's lips and curled sinuously with his tongue, inviting it to play.

When Tony pulled away, Steve was left dizzy and breathless, his mouth puffy, and he could feel the telltale writhing pleasure of arousal deep in his lower stomach. Tony, for his part, looked positively delighted, his eyes bright and excited, like a child with a new toy.

"So," Tony said, "tell me about the scar now. Surely that was enough to warrant that information."

Steve rolled his tongue around his mouth. Tony tasted like aged scotch and mint. Not unpleasant. Different enough from Peggy so he didn't feel bad about it. "I'm not sure, Mr. Stark," he said thoughtfully. "It would seem like my information's pretty valuable stuff, you know? I might need a bit more...coercing."

Tony was only too happy to oblige.


	13. Spun Sugar and Fairy Tales (Chicago 3)

Written to Title and Registration - Death Cab for Cutie, crosspost from AO3

* * *

"It's sort of hard to talk about Peggy," Steve admitted as he stroked a thumb over Tony's bicep. The billionaire curled up next to him, burrowed into his side like a small child, and Steve could feel the even rise and fall of his chest. He'd made Tony get up and put on a pair of sweat pants before he even entertained the idea of telling him anything of importance, and Tony had grumbled at him and told him that he was ruining the mood completely, but had gotten up and complied. He'd bent over provocatively and wiggled his bottom in Steve's general direction, and Steve rolled his eyes and tried to ignore the freckles dusting Tony's lower back and the birth mark like a coffee stain spilling across Tony's left shoulder blade.

The soft cotton of Tony's sweatpants pressed against Steve's bare leg. "It doesn't seem fair that you get to only wear underwear," Tony said to him. "I thought you were all about equality. This doesn't feel very equal to me."

"I'm also not the one who has a thing for guys with phenomenal asses," Steve explained. "The sweats are there to protect my oh so precious virgin status."

Tony snorted. "I'm still rather surprised about that. Can we look into remedying that as soon as possible?"

Steve looked up at the bumps on the stucco ceiling as Tony wriggled his way underneath his arm and pulled the blankets up around them. "I don't know, to be honest with you," he said with a soft sigh. "I don't really know what I'm feeling right now. You just sort of got up and kissed me, and I don't know what to do about that."

Tony shrugged, and sat up a bit to fluff the pillows underneath his head. "The fact that you haven't flipped out and shoved me off the bed is a fairly good start, I would say."

Steve smiled a little as he studied Tony's profile, backlit by the soft yellow light of the nightstand lamp. "Another move from you and I just might strongly reconsider my course of action," he warned playfully.

Tony lay back, and underneath the sheets his fingers found Steve's and curled tightly between them. His hand was large, broad, warm and dry in Steve's palm. A man's hand, the palm covered with calluses, probably from gripping tiny wrenches and small metallic tools and torches and things Steve didn't know the names for. Steve rolled onto his side and wrapped an arm around Tony, whose soft warmth melted into his skin and caused the scar on his side to tingle. It was prone to doing that sometimes, when it was raining, when Steve was confused, when he heard a woman's voice in the distance calling his name and looked up to search for her, but she was never there...

"Well?" Tony said, his voice gentle but demanding. "Short of rolling you over and ravishing you, I'm not sure what you would like me to do. Surely your information isn't as important as all that, is it?"

"No?" Steve asked, admiring the way the soft, downy hairs at the base of Tony's neck curled wildly with a will of their own. "Why do you say that?"

"The scar is old," Tony explained, a thumb stroking over Steve's. "It's silvery already. It's at least a few months old, if not years. It's not a smooth one, ragged around the edges. Some rough stitches, I'd guess, but what could you have possibly done to get something so deep?" Tony mused. "The angle's all wrong for you to have done it yourself, and you don't strike me like the self-harm sort of guy."

Tony rolled over to face him, and Steve admired the way his dark eyes caught the lamplight and held them in soft sparkles.

"Correct me if I'm wrong?" Tony asked softly. Steve just shook his head, and Tony untangled his fingers from Steve's and blindly ran his hand over Steve's ribs. His fingertips were gentle, inquisitive, stopping and slowing as they ran lightly over the unnaturally smooth strip of skin trailing across Steve's rib cage.

"Perhaps a bad accident?" Tony murmured, looking far away. "Fall off a ladder? Something sharp."

"It was a bad occurrence," Steve agreed, gently reaching up and taking Tony's hand in his own again. "But it wasn't a ladder. A knife."

"A knife?" Tony repeated, looking at Steve with a barely disguised curiosity gleaming in his eyes. "Well, I suppose you are from Brooklyn, high crime rates and such, ineffectual police force, yadda yadda yadda. But...I'm not sure, it just always seems like the sort of stuff that happens to people you read about on the news, not people you know."

"Perhaps that's how it is for you," Steve said gently. "Ensconced happily in your tower, your penthouse apartments with pretty secretaries and a happy ending waiting just over the horizon. You walk so high above the clouds that you never have the time to look and see what goes on right beneath you."

Tony laughed, but the sound came out bitter and unamused. "Is that right? Unfortunately, life above the clouds isn't all spun sugar and fairy tales. Far from it. The higher you climb, the more you break when you fall."

They were silent for a moment, and Steve traced the sharp lines of Tony's face, took note of the faint traces of crow's feet around his eyes, the slight tinge of grey at his temples. And perhaps it was the flaws hidden behind the call girls and the alcohol and the drugs, perhaps it was the dry warmth of Tony's hand in his own, perhaps it was the way Tony's mouth wasn't fully closed, but Steve found himself talking.

"It was March 14, 2009," Steve murmured, and Tony's eyes shot up to find his own with a rapt attention Steve hadn't seen before. "We were going to graduate that year. Peggy and I," Steve clarified, clearing his throat. "She was going to be a nurse, and I was going to be a doctor. Or maybe an engineer working with biotechnology. You know, prosthetic limbs and robotic organs and stuff like that, I'm sure your company makes things like that too, not just dishwashers. Maybe I would even have ended up working for you someday." Steve was fully aware he was babbling, but it had been almost 5 years and the sentences were rushing up his throat, words he had thought about almost every night and had never had the right opportunity to say. But Tony was here, and the clutch of his fingers against Steve's indicated that he wasn't planning on going anywhere any time soon, and the snow drifted down outside to drape Chicago in a soft blanket of white.

"We were going to work together, we'd have our own practice," Steve murmured dreamily. "She'd take good care of my patients, and everyone would love her. Thank you, Nurse Rogers, you've really helped me feel much better. Your husband's a first-rate surgeon, you know that?" Steve smiled sadly. "That's what they would say to her in our imaginations."

"Why didn't you marry her?" Tony wanted to know.

"I was going to," Steve said, remembering the day he'd gone to Tiffany's and spent the last of his money on a beautiful diamond ring in a pastel blue box. How that blue box had burnt a hole in his coat pocket on March 14, 2009, and he'd buried it with her because he couldn't bear to see it anymore.

"I was going to ask her to marry me that night. It was spring break, and I'd taken her to Brooklyn so that she could meet my ma. I was really excited. I think she was, too. I think she knew that I was going to ask her."

Steve swallowed, the lump in his throat catching on the edges of his words. Tony waited patiently, and Steve was calmed by the soft rhythm Tony's pulse pressed into his wrist. It was a few moments before he could muster the steadiness to begin again.

"We were in Prospect Park." Steve found his voice trembling and shivering around the consonants, but Tony stroked his thumb gently and waited until Steve could find it in himself to continue. "It was snowing, cold, and her cheeks and nose were like cherries. Snow was catching in her hair and eyelashes, little speckles of white, and she laughed and we talked and walked around the park, and when the snow started to turn to rain, she tugged on my hand and asked me if we couldn't go somewhere dry and warm instead. I wish I'd listened. I regret it."

Tony watched him carefully, his dark eyes fixed on Steve's face. Steve felt the edges of horror and panic and fear rising up to tighten around his heart again, but Tony's hand in his subdued the jagged lump of despair in his throat.

"They were drunk," Steve murmured, the words catching in his mouth, not wanting to let go of his tongue so easily. "I could smell it on them. Really strong alcohol, you know." Tony looked ashamed for a moment, and Steve felt a bit guilty about that, but he'd wanted to know, and it was too late to back out of telling him now.

"They came up to us, these three homeless men, stinking of dirt and piss and alcohol," Steve said, and these old memories were even more vivid than Tony's reader's immersiveness had been. "They laughed and their words were slurred and it was still raining. They..." - here Steve paused and swallowed, blinking roughly as he tried to compose himself - "they asked her could they have her purse? She said no, of course...Pegs wasn't a city girl, she was from somewhere back West where everyone was nice and nobody was robbed or killed or hurt."

Steve tried to focus on the way Tony's eyebrows arched, on the curve of his mouth, but his scar ached and tingled and burned, demanding that he finish.

"They didn't take kindly to that, I don't think." Steve laughed, a harsh, gasping sound that turned into a sob as he quickly tried to stifle it. "Have you ever tried to fight a drunk man? It looks so easy in the movies and in the books, but it's really not." Steve was so absorbed in his memories that he didn't notice that almost imperceptible nod Tony gave him in answer to his question.

"Alcohol gives a man strength he doesn't know he had," Steve continued. "The capacity to be cruel, to hurt, to harm..."

And Tony's arms are around him, holding, hugging tightly, assuring. Steve is aware of nothing but the soft warmth surrounding him and the tears stroking their way down his cheeks, a veritable flood that had been growing for the past almost five years now...

"Someone had a knife, and they ripped the bag from her hands and knocked her over and two of them held me while the other one bent over her and - "

He choked on the word, and his sobs began to come in earnest. Tony patted his back gently and murmured hushed things that Steve couldn't quite make out over the pounding in his ears.

"I can't, Tony," Steve whispered, his voice thick with tears. "I can't."

"Yes, yes," Tony said gently, his voice soft and soothing. "It's alright, it's alright now."

"They raped her," Steve gasped, and the word is out, ugly and thick and looming in the air. "And they killed her, and it was raining, and she was never going to be Mrs. Rogers or go to nursing school and they didn't even take her bag in the end."

Tony was quiet, and Steve clung tightly to Tony's body with his arms and Tony held him as he cried himself to sleep.

* * *

Like many nights after March 14, 2009, Steve had dreams of Peggy and a marriage that would never happen.

Unlike many nights after March 14, 2009, when Steve woke up, he found himself next to Tony Stark, a billionaire that sold dishwashers and happy endings, with the early morning sunlight sparkling off Chicago's glass skyscrapers and the snow built up in little piles on the hotel room balcony. Tony had moved away from him during the night - perhaps it had gotten too warm underneath the covers - but his fingers were still placed softly, trustingly, in Steve's own. He looked at them, squeezed them, and when Tony mumbled something unintelligible and squeezed back faintly, Steve breathed out a faint sigh of relief, wriggled closer to Tony and pressed a gentle kiss to the coffee stain spilling across Tony's shoulder before falling asleep again for another three hours.


	14. Happiness in Conflict (Wichita, Kansas)

Written to Same Love - Macklemore & Ryan Lewis ft. Mary Lambert, crosspost from AO3.

* * *

Tony and Steve spent three weeks in Chicago, alternating visiting popular tourist destinations in the city with lazy days spent lounging around underneath the hotel bed covers.

They walked around the University of Chicago's campus, admiring the tall Gothic spires of the chapel and the school buildings, and Tony informed Steve that some of the rooms and architecture in the Harry Potter films had been replicated there, and Steve had never seen nor read Harry Potter, to which Tony was absolutely scandalised and demanded he read the books at once, they were practically classics.

"Like Pride and Prejudice!" Tony argued indignantly as they strolled around the snowy campus, hand in hand and sipping hot tea from the Gordon Cafe. "Maybe even Great Expectations, but let me tell you that book was boring as sin." Steve privately thought Great Expectations was a fantastic book, he'd read it in high school, but wasn't about to ruin the moment with some sort of petty argument. Tony had been trying to be cheerful and playfully trivial since Steve told him about Peggy, which Steve appreciated.

In fact, the only thing about Peggy that Tony had said was to offer Steve his condolences. He didn't try to tell him that there was a God that worked in mysterious ways, or that everything happened for a reason like so many other people had. Tony hadn't tried to reassure him that it wasn't his fault, hadn't tried to use variations of words his mother, his friends offered up. The information was just there, just other facts to store and catalogue away, and Steve was grateful that Tony wasn't making a big deal out of it.

October slipped by into November, and it was with a heavy heart and a checking of the calendars that Steve realised there was only a month and a half left until his departure for South Korea.

"I'm not so sure I'm ready to go," Steve admitted one snowy November morning as Tony curled up in his arms and stretched, rubbing his eyes with the backs of his hands. "I thought I was all ready to leave, you know, it's been the only thing I've wanted since Peggy. There wasn't anything for me here. But now there's you. You sort of get in the way of my plans."

Tony smiled, his eyes still bleary with sleep. "Yes, I tend to do that, don't I? The meddling billionaire, that's what they call me. Always toying with people. It certainly isn't good for my reputation, Pepper always tells me that."

And Steve assumed he was supposed to feel jealous about Pepper and if Tony still had any residual feelings for her, but he didn't really understand what this was. Him and Tony. There wasn't a set way to define it, no words in Steve's dictionary, but Tony didn't seem too perturbed by it, and if he did, he was very good at hiding it.

Steve was privately amazed that Tony had managed to go without sex for so long. Tony, meanwhile, was privately amazed by Steve's cloak of innocence that seemed to protect him and shield him from every innuendo and sexual reference Tony threw his way.

It was really quite baffling, each of them thought, and if the housekeeping ever noticed that the second bed in the hotel room wasn't being used, they didn't say anything about it to anybody.

* * *

"We won't be home for Thanksgiving?" Steve asked, looking at Tony in the bathroom mirror where both of them were shaving. Tony looked particularly funny, flecks of shaving cream spotting his cheeks and chin from spots he'd missed without his glasses to help him see.

"I'm afraid not. I mean, we could be, if that's what you'd really like?" Tony met Steve's eyes in the mirror. "I'd just have one more stop to make."

"As long as it's not Las Vegas. I wouldn't like to drag you away from your fun with those ladies in cages that I hear are so popular over there," Steve said playfully, rinsing off the remaining shaving cream on his cheeks.

Tony laughed. "I think the dancing ladies can wait. I just need to make a stop in Los Angeles, and then we can take a plane back to New York. You're going to see your mum, I presume?"

"I'd like to," Steve said. "This has been fun, it's been really fun, but I would like to see her for a few weeks before I get deployed. I mean, she's got Alzheimers and probably won't remember who I am, let alone that I'm leaving for South Korea, most of the time she thinks I'm my father, but...it would be nice to see her again, you know what I'm saying?"

Tony was watching Steve carefully in the mirror. Once Steve finished talking, he turned back to the mirror and peered at himself, dragging the razor carefully down the curve of his jaw. "I guess so," Tony said doubtfully, flicking excess cream off the razor blade. "I didn't have the best relationship with my parents, but I guess I can see where you're coming from. I mean, my dad liked being absent at fatherly functions like open houses and science fairs because he was drowning in the bottom of a bottle, and my mum was a big fan of crying quite a lot and doing nothing, really."

Steve was at a loss for words. "I'm...I'm sorry to hear that," he said quietly, reaching out and placing a hand over Tony's across the bathroom counter. Tony just shrugged and continued shaving.

"Nothing to be sorry for, just the way it was. They died a long time ago, when I was still a kid. Car crash, you know how it is. Although, to be fair, being raised by a family butler isn't all that bad. Jarvis made me feel like Batman. He let me dress up as Batman whenever I came home from school, and he'd pretend to be Alfred." Tony smiled fondly at the memory. "God, was he a good man."

Tony finished shaving, patted spicy aftershave onto his cheeks. "He died back in 2003, though. Old age, thankfully. He lived out a ripe and happy life, and by then I had Pepper too, and Ems, so it wasn't too bad. I miss him on occasion, though, his tutty, disapproving British voice telling me to finish my homework before dinner, or telling me how the youth of America were destined to become nothing more than kindling for the fires of the British empire, which would, mark my words, rise again." Tony imitated a very strong Cockney accent, bristling his mustache from side to side, and Steve couldn't help but laugh.

Once his laughter died down, Steve wiped his eyes and looked at Tony again. "Ems? Your daughter?"

Tony's eyes softened, the merriment of the previous minute clearing rapidly from his eyes. "Yeah. My daughter, Emily. It's why I have to go to Los Angeles, you see. To visit."

"Ah...I see." Steve had no idea how joint custody worked, but thought that it must be incredibly hard to maintain that sort of relationship over thousands of miles and on separate coasts. He wondered who Emily's mother was, if Tony had loved her, why it wasn't Pepper. Or was it Pepper and she and Tony had had a falling out or something? No, that didn't seem at all likely.

"I can tell you're positively burning with curiosity right now," Tony said, rolling his eyes. "You'll hear all about it on the way, or maybe once we get there. I haven't been to visit her in a while, so it'll be sort of a new experience for me."

And Steve was burning with inquiries that Tony wasn't willing or ready to answer, and Tony really had been nice about the whole Peggy thing, so Steve made a mental note of questions he wanted to ask and saved it away for later.

* * *

"'It was the unicorn all right, and it was dead. Harry had never seen anything so beautiful and sad. Its long, slender legs were stuck out at odd angles where it had fallen and its mane was spread pearly-white on the dark leaves.'"

Tony's voice rumbled through his chest and vibrated through Steve's ears as he read through Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone. The rich baritone of his words curled through Steve's ears, and he could hear Tony's heart beating from where his head rested on Tony's chest. As Tony read from the reader, the holographic projections danced in his eyes and Steve could see the unicorn lying on the ground, its silvery blood the whites of Tony's eyes, its lovely mane the thick fringe of Tony's eyelashes, and he really should not be having these thoughts about Tony, he was a man, and Steve wasn't gay, was he? Could he be?

But Tony's voice was rich and deep and soothing, and Steve could smell the loam of the forest floor in every syllable, could hear the soft crunching of leaves behind every word.

He was lulled into a sort of sleepy trance as Tony continued to read to him, a hand absentmindedly stroking through Steve's hair.

"I'm not gay," Steve said abruptly, as the end of the chapter rolled around. Tony gently patted the back of Steve's head fondly.

"No?" he asked softly, and Steve felt horrid guilt welling up in his chest at the slight disappointment in his voice. "Well, that's alright." He made no motion to push Steve away.

"I'm sorry," Steve whispered, his voice choked. "I don't know what this is. I don't know what we are. There's no word for it that I know, and it's making me very confused."

Tony gently patted Steve's hair again. "You don't have to," he said quietly. "Sometimes the best things don't have words to describe them. Does this feel wrong to you? Us, like this?"

"No," Steve admitted. "It feels like...it feels like belonging. It feels right."

"Then it must be alright," Tony murmured. "We don't have to be a couple. We don't have to be dating, or boyfriends, or whatever other words you'd like to slap on it. We can just be us, Steve and Tony. How's that?"

"Boyfriend." Steve rolled the word around his mouth; the syllables felt odd on his tongue, but fit perfectly into his mouth, the letters gentle against his teeth. "Are you my boyfriend?"

Tony laughed, the soft rumble pulsing through Steve's veins. "I don't know. Am I? Would you like me to be?"

Steve searched his mind for something, anything, and only found the word "Yes," rolling around his synapses and sparking through his head.

"I...yes," Steve said honestly. "I think I would like that. Does that make me a bad person?"

Tony laughed again. "Well, it might make your taste in people a little bit questionable, given my horrid track record. But hey, I'm not going to complain. I'd like it very much, if I could be your boyfriend."

"This means no more going to clubs, getting drunk and rolling around with women in bed with alcohol and cocaine," Steve warned, propping himself up on an elbow and looking at Tony. The words from the book danced across Tony's face and reflected in his glasses.

Tony shrugged. "I guess I can deal with that. You seem like you're worth it."

"The Bible says being gay is a sin," Steve said, frowning and running his hands through his hair.

Tony frowned back, reaching out and tangling his fingers in Steve's free hand. "Then I suppose we'll just both have to go to hell together, won't we?"

And Steve eyed Tony, at the thick fringe of his dark eyelashes, at the slight curve of his mouth, at the curly edges of his black mustache, and thought that hell with Tony might not be too horrible after all.

* * *

They set out for Los Angeles early the next morning, when the sun was just barely peeking out above the grey clouds heavy with that day's snow. Tony fell asleep as soon as they were on the interstate, curled up in a black pea coat, his breath fogging up the passenger side window. Steve looked over, admired the way the golden early morning rays painted Tony's face with soft light.

He reached over, took one of Tony's hands in his own.

In his sleep, Tony's fingers curled lightly around Steve's, and Steve wrapped his fingers more tightly around Tony's hand and told God that he was sorry, but Tony felt like comfort and home and Steve wanted this, needed this.

As the sun broke fully over the horizon and lit up the trees and grass on the sides of the highway, Steve privately thought God would allow this.

* * *

They stopped in a small motel in Wichita, Kansas, to rest for the night. The girl behind the counter arched her eyebrow at them, looked strangely at them, but handed over the key to a room anyway. Steve wanted to tell her that she didn't understand, that it wasn't odd, it was just him and Tony, but Tony pulled him away before he could say anything.

Tony offered to go out for a food run, Steve must have been exhausted, he claimed, and Steve smiled gratefully and tossed the Mercedes keys to him.

Once the door clicked shut behind him, Steve leaned over and picked up the room phone. He took a deep breath, the dial tone heavy and judgmental in his ear, and dialed his mother's number.

The live-in nurse he'd hired picked up the phone.

"Ms. Rogers is sleeping right now," she told him snippily.

"Can you wake her up?" Steve asked, running a hand through his hair. "I need to talk to her."

The nurse sighed exasperatedly. "She really needs her rest," she said admonishingly. "She shouldn't be disturbed."

"I need to talk to her right now," Steve demanded. Something in his tone gave the nurse pause, clearly, because after a long moment of silence, she sighed again and told him to hold on while she got Ms. Rogers up.

"Hello?" His mother's voice was weak and creaky with sleep, and Steve smiled at the sound. "Who is this?"

"Ma? It's Steve," Steve said, sitting at the edge of the bed and twirling the phone cord around his fingers. "I have something to tell you."

"Oh, Steve, sweetie, is that you?" His mother's voice was clearer now, and Steve was relieved that she remembered him, remembered that she had a son. Maybe it was easier over the phone, he thought, she'd always told him he looked so much like his father when he was younger, maybe that was why she kept confusing him with Joseph, maybe...

"What is it, darling?" his mother asked when he didn't say anything. "Are you in trouble?"

"No, Ma," Steve said, laughing softly. "I wanted to tell you that I'm in love with somebody."

"Is that right?" His mother sounded genuinely happy. "I'm so happy for you, dear. After what happened with Peggy, you need this. What's her name?"

Steve paused. After a long silence, during which his mother asked him if he'd hung up twice and he'd replied No, he hadn't, to both inquiries, he finally spoke again. "Tony."

"Her name's Tony?" His mother sounded confused. "Is she one of those girls who thinks that having a male name is fun?"

Steve swallowed roughly. "No, Ma," he said, clearing his throat. "His name's Tony."

His mother was quiet for a very long time, and Steve wanted to ask her if she had hung up, but the dread was coiling around his throat and he couldn't speak.

"Do you love him?" his mother asked softly. Steve felt the tears stroking down his cheeks, and tried to breathe evenly so his mother wouldn't hear him crying. He nodded vigorously before remembering his mother couldn't see him.

"Yes, Ma," he murmured, his words choked. "I think I do."

"Alright, dear," his mother said gently, and Steve was surprised that she didn't sound angry, or hurt, or judgmental in any way. His mother was a devout Catholic who went to Mass twice a week, and extra during the holidays. "Alright."

"I'm sorry, Ma," and Steve couldn't hold it back anymore, the sobs worming their slick paths in between his syllables. "I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm so sorry..."

"Oh, Steve, darling," his mother murmured, her voice crackly over the telephone. "Don't cry, dear. Shh, shh, there's a good boy, don't cry anymore."

Steve sniffled, wiping away his tears with the backs of his hands.

"Does he make you happy?" his mother asked.

"Yes," Steve whispered, his voice still catching in his throat. "Yes, he does. He makes me mad sometimes, but when I'm with him, I feel safe and...he feels like home, Ma. Like I've been waiting for this the whole time."

Steve swore he could hear his mother's smile over the telephone. "I'm so happy for you, Steve," she said. "I'm so happy for you."

Steve choked on a sob as he smiled and laughed with relief, fresh tears of happiness spilling down his face.

"Will you be home for Thanksgiving?" his mother wanted to know. "Bring him with you. I would like to meet him. I'll make your favourite apple pie."

"Yes, Ma," Steve said, smiling through his tears. "Yes, I'll bring him home for Thanksgiving."

Steve gladly would have chatted with his mother the rest of the night, but the nurse picked up the telephone on the other end and firmly told him that Ms. Rogers really did need her rest now, it was nearly midnight in Brooklyn.

Steve reluctantly hung up the phone, assuring his mother that he would see her in a few weeks' time, and flopped back onto the bed. He buried his face in his hands, but the smile on his mouth still showed through the gaps between his fingers.

* * *

In the motel parking lot, bags of diner takeout sitting in the passenger seat beside him, Tony pulled out his mobile and dialed Pepper's cell number.

"Hey, Peps," he said. "I'd like to make a donation."

"A donation of what?" Pepper's voice was blurry with sleep, and Tony felt a little bit guilty for waking her up.

"Can you make a donation for $10 million to the Alzheimer's Association?"

Pepper was silent for a moment. "Oh, Tony, you love him," she murmured softly. She didn't sound angry, or regretful, it was just a fact that was out there amongst the airwaves, and hell if Tony was going to deny it.

"Yeah, Pepper. I do," he said quietly, looking out the windshield at the soft yellow light spilling from their motel room's window. "I do love him."

"When are you coming back?" Pepper wanted to know. "Will you be back in time for Thanksgiving?"

"Yeah, I will be," Tony murmured, his fingers playing with the ring around his neck. "I was thinking...of taking him to see Emily. Would that be alright with you?"

Pepper's voice was choked when she next spoke, and Tony wanted to reach through the telephone and comfort her, wrap her in a tight hug and tell her not to cry anymore.

"I think she would like that, Tony," she said, her syllables short and bit off with barely concealed sobs. "I think she'd like that very much. Knowing that you were happy. Tell her I love her, and...and that Peppa misses her very much."

Tony scrubbed away the tears gathering in the corners of his eyes.

"Okay, okay. I will. I'll let her know."

"Be happy, Tony Stark," Pepper whispered before she hung up. Tony sat in his car for a few more moments, the air scented with the greasy smell of cheap hamburgers, and buried his face in his hands.


	15. Emily (Albuquerque, New Mexico)

Written to: Rain - Brian Crain, crosspost from AO3

* * *

"Does it feel nice?" Steve asked, flicking the small plastic baggie of electric blue rocks he held in his hands. "Cocaine, I mean, not whatever this is."

"Rock candy," Tony said, through a smile of neon blue teeth. At Steve's dubious face, he rolled his eyes. "Oh, relax. It's not actually meth, I promise you that. Otherwise I'd be snorting it instead of stuffing it in my mouth."

Steve sighed. "That's not funny, Tony."

After nine and a half long hours of driving and running several speed limits, the Mercedes had rolled into Albuquerque. The smooth black metal grille and windshield of the car was splattered with dead bugs and dust from the road. The dry November heat of Albuquerque was a welcome change from the snow in Chicago, and Steve was grateful for that, even if he was currently sweating through his T-shirt. Tony didn't seem to mind, and kept throwing appreciative glances his way that Steve pretended not to see in the interest of preserving whatever shreds of propriety he had left.

"Oh, come on," Tony said, sticking out his tongue at Steve. The taste buds were crowned with a slight frosting of blue, and Steve had to resist the urge to smile for fear of encouraging him.

"Drugs are bad for you," Steve lectured him, and Tony pouted at him, like a child who has just been told he definitely can't have any more candy that particular Halloween night. Steve's voice softened. "But in all seriousness, I don't want you to do drugs again. All drugs. Cocaine, heroin, acid, I don't want you doing anything like that. And I know I won't be here to make sure you aren't doing that stuff when I'm on tour in Korea, but I want you to promise me. Can you do that?"

Tony looked at him before sighing and hopping on the hotel bed next to him. The soft down mattress bounced a little bit, and the dusty late afternoon sunlight slipped in between the bedroom curtains and sparkled off the silver ring resting in the hollow of Tony's collarbones. Steve reached out to touch it, marveling at the smoothness of the sterling silver band, admiring the clarity and colour of the four small diamonds that studded it.

"This seems...a bit excessive for a child," Steve mused, turning the ring over and over in his fingers. "What would a child need with a diamond ring anyway? Surely it wasn't because it was all the rage among the children at her day care."

Tony laughed a bit, but there wasn't any joy in his eyes. "Well," he said after a long pause during which Steve watched him worry a lump of rock candy inside his left cheek. "It was a birthday present for her third birthday, you see. This is what eccentric billionaires do when they have absolutely nothing else to do with their cash. Buy shiny rocks for women and luxury cars for themselves."

"Is that right?" Steve said, folding his hands over his stomach and waiting for further explanation. It was a technique he'd learned in introductory psychology at Duke. Tony would tell him eventually.

Tony bit his lip, the tips of his blue teeth peeking out. "Yeah, pretty much. It's how we get people to love us, bribe them with gifts and words and lies of happy endings that we can't really promise, no matter how much we might wish for it to be true. Words don't make actions, as I'm sure you already know, and promises are easy to break."

Steve was all too familiar with that particular sentiment, and he nodded in agreement. He patted the pillow beside him, gesturing for Tony to lie down next to him. The billionaire obliged, and Steve wrapped his hand around Tony's, squeezing reassuringly, stroking Tony's thumb with his own as the both of them stared up at the ceiling.

"Her name is Emily," Tony began after a long pause during which Steve was tempted to roll onto his side and check to see if he was sleeping. "Funny thing is, I don't even know if she' mine. Oh, sure, she could have been, I've slept with enough women for that to happen, and condoms aren't always a hundred percent effective against that type of stuff."

Tony chuckled a bit as he spoke. "I was young and stupid back then." At Steve's sideways look, he rolled his eyes and amended that statement. "I was younger and stupider back then. It was a few years ago, mid January of 2009. Pepper was the one who found her, actually, and brought her inside. From what she tells me, it was like something out of a story book fairy tale, where a child gets left on the doorstep of some wealthy relative or something in a basket and a blanket with a letter clutched tightly in their fist."

Tony sighed, his voice catching a bit in his chest, and Steve waited patiently while he gathered his breath to continue. "It was the middle of the work day when Pepper called me out of a meeting - and you have to understand this about Pepper, she'd never call me out of a meeting unless something disastrous was happening, like if North Korea had decided to bomb my apartment specifically, and even then she'd probably be able to take care of it. Anyway, she called me out of my meeting, which was boring anyway, and she told me that I had to come home right now."

Tony smiled in remembrance, and Steve felt a slight twinge of jealousy. "Pepper and me were tight back then, best friends, colleagues, coworkers, lovers." Seeing Steve's slightly cross expression, Tony hastily continued. "When I got home, she told me that there was a baby in the house and what did I want to do with it? I just stared at her for the longest time, and when she did that little huff of hers and wheeled around to the bedroom, I thought she was playing some sort of prank. And when she came back out with that squirming little bundle of pink in her arms, I didn't really know what to do.

"But then Pepper thrust it out to me, and I sort of had to take it. 'Her name is Emily,' Pepper told me, 'it said so in the note.' The note didn't have handwriting I recognized - who handwrites notes these days? seriously - and it was just that. A name. Nothing else."

"Why didn't you give her up for adoption?" Steve asked.

"I...well, I was going to," Tony admitted reluctantly. "But then Pepper gave me this look," here he rolled onto his side and gave Steve an expression that could have been incredible advertising for some sort of animal abuse hotline, huge puppy dog eyes and all. "And you have to understand, Steve, I really loved the woman back then; if she'd asked me to buy her the moon, I would have tried my hardest to."

"'Look, Tony,' she said, pulling back a fold of the blanket. 'Look how cute she is! Let's keep her, I get lonely around the house anyway. And it'll be really good practice for when we do have kids.'"

"And let me tell you," Tony laughed, "when Pepper puts her foot down and says she wants something, she has a way of getting it. Obviously, it didn't help that I loved her to pieces. And so that's how we came to have and keep Emily."

"Don't they have tests these days to test if you're the father of a child?" Steve wanted to know, vaguely recalling some daytime talk show with a man who yelled rather loudly and incoherently at some people with tears in their eyes. It had been a silly show, and it had been the only thing that was playing in the waiting room at the hospital his mother went to for checkups and talks with her doctor.

"Paternity tests, yeah," Tony agreed. "They have those. I don't know, I never got one. I don't think it really matters, though; a father, I feel, is easy to be. A donation of sperm to an egg. Biology. But being a dad is hard, and sometimes it's not a requirement to be related by blood."

Steve rolled onto his side to look at Tony, their hands still cradled together.

"You know," Tony said, and his voice was choked. "I didn't love her, not at first. I kept trying to convince Pepper to give her up, that she wasn't ours anyway, that her mother was probably looking for her even though that was a lie. You don't leave your child in a fucking picnic basket on someone's doorstep if you want to keep them."

There were tears in Tony's eyes, and Steve shifted a bit closer, threw his free arm over Tony's shoulders and pulled him closer, patting the back of his head gently. Tony's eyelashes beat in double time against Steve's neck, and Steve could feel the stutter in his breath, the catch in his chest.

"We put up signs all over the neighbourhood, like you might do for a lost dog or cat; advertisements on the Internet for missing children, stuff like that. But Pepper drew the line at giving her to the police department for them to arrange foster living arrangements for her. 'No, Tony!' she yelled at me. 'We can't let her go to live with strangers! She belongs with us.'"

Tony sniffed, and Steve ran his fingers through the soft, downy hair at the base of Tony's neck. "That was the only time Pepper ever yelled at me, you know. The first and only time. She never got mad at me, not when I came home high and stinking of alcohol and sex, not even when I brought home slutty women and she had to see them out. God, I treated her like crap afterwards."

Tony was quiet for a very long time afterwards, his breathing evening out against Steve's chest. When he finally spoke, his voice was so quiet that Steve had to strain to hear.

"Anyway, the first few weeks were hell. Emily didn't sleep through the night and kept screaming for her mama. She would look at Pepper all angrily, with these big dark eyes just swimming with tears, and she'd shriek at the top of her lungs for Mama! Mama! And after two weeks, I told Pepper that I just couldn't take it anymore, and I picked Emily up, and I was getting ready to call child services or something, someone, anyone, when you know what she does?"

"What?" Steve asked softly, still carding his fingers through Tony's hair. "What did she do?"

"She looks me in the eye, all serious like, and she has these tufts of dark brown hair sticking up all over the place, and she looks as ridiculous as a baby can possibly look, and she looks straight at me, and she says, 'Dada.'"

Tony laughed, a choked off sound that went straight to Steve's heart.

"Pepper looked so damn proud, and I wanted to tell her that this wasn't funny, it really wasn't, but Emily patted my face and kept saying that over and over again. Dada! Dada! Dada! That was the moment I knew I couldn't give her away. That was the moment she became Emily Stark instead of just Emily. I guess that's why it didn't really matter that I got a paternity test or not. She was mine, or I was hers. Probably the latter, that kid knew how to wrap me around her pinky like no other woman ever has, like no other woman ever will."

Steve smiled quietly. The billionaire certainly was full of surprises. At the beginning of the trip, he'd managed to convince himself that Tony was a reckless heathen, but he'd proven himself as a man of many virtues as the miles rolled away beneath them.

"Emily is a beautiful name," Steve said truthfully. "She sounds lovely."

Steve could feel the hot, wet warmth of tears soaking into his shoulder, could feel Tony's shoulders shaking in his hold. "She was," Tony sobbed softly, and Steve felt a sharp, cold spike of dread digging claws into the pit of his stomach and making it hard to swallow. "She was the loveliest little girl."

And Steve waited, and waited, and waited, the dread burning him up from the inside out, while Tony cried into the crook of his shoulder.

"It's okay," Steve whispered softly, "it's okay, it's okay, shh, shh, don't cry, I have you now, I have you, you're safe, with me, it's alright, it's alright now."

Tony was sobbing out barely unintelligible sentences into the fabric of Steve's cotton shirt, facts:

"She loved fairy floss, but only the pink kind, not the blue kind, the blue kind was for boys, of course it was for boys."

"Giraffes were her favourite animal at the zoo, and she'd always tell me how when I came home that 'Peppa' had sat with her and played giraffes and tigers, she couldn't pronounce the r in Pepper, did you know that -"

but the most heartwrenching one came at the very end, when Tony was hiccupping softly and his voice was wrecked and quiet.

"She was only four, Steve," he whispered, his voice hazy like coming from the end of a very long train tunnel. "She was only four."

Steve didn't get any sleep that night, even though he was horribly exhausted, even though they had a long drive ahead of them the next day. He lay there quietly, and held Tony as the billionaire slept fitfully, the beams of moonlight crawling across the hotel walls.

* * *

Like many nights after January 27, 2012, Tony had dreams of his family, of Pepper and Emily.

Unlike many nights after January 27, 2012, when Tony woke up, he found himself next to Steve Rogers, who had dozed off lightly sometime after 5 AM and would wake at the slightest twitch of Tony's hand in his own. Steve had wrapped himself around Tony subconsciously, and Tony breathed out a faint sigh of relief, lay very still, and listened to the steady, strong beat of Steve's heart in his chest before falling asleep for another three hours.


	16. Bronze (Los Angeles, California)

Even though Tony had said the drive from Albuquerque to Los Angeles was a staggering eleven hours and some odd minutes, according to MapQuest, he was determined to do it in one go. Steve kept his eyes closed pointedly, hoping that Tony would get the hint and just shut up and let him fall back to sleep, to that wonderful dream involving cheesecake that he'd been having. Tony was having none of it, however, and after a few moments of jiggling his leg nervously from where he sat on the edge of the bed, the billionaire reached over, grabbed Steve's shoulder with a firm hand, and shook.

"Come on, sleepyhead, the day's wasting."

Steve groaned, rolled over, clutched the hotel pillow to his chest tightly, and burrowed himself down into the covers. He was left this way for all of three seconds before Tony stood up, the mattress bouncing back gently, and tugged the coverlet off Steve with one firm yank.

"Come on," he said, more gently this time, with a fond pat on the top of Steve's leg. "I'll drive. You just have to get in the car, and you can sleep all the way there."

"No, no," Steve mumbled, scrubbing over his face with his hands, trying to rub away the sleep. "It's okay. We'll go. Just let me get ready a bit."

In the bathroom, Steve looked at his bloodshot eyes, achy and lined with a thin film of sleep. The faucet ran hot into the porcelain sink as he brushed his teeth and washed his face. When he looked somewhat put together, he sighed and ran his hands through his blonde hair, ruffling it up a bit, wondering if he'd miss it when he'd cut it off for military purposes.

He wasn't sure if he would miss it; maybe it was just that he'd miss the feel of Tony's fingers carding through his hair. Maybe it was just that he'd miss Tony, which was definitely true. He thanked any higher beings that might have existed that it was only a deployment to South Korea, where there wasn't really so much war as political escort services for diplomats and government figures to be done. It could have been so much worse, he reminded himself. He might have been assigned to a campaign in the Middle East, in Afghanistan or Iraq or something like that, where the nights were hot and there was the constant threat of bombs or IEDs or what have you.

He could have joined Bucky there, in an unmarked grave. Could have sent a solemn, stern-faced officer back to New York, to Tony's penthouse apartment in downtown, carrying a folded up flag and a tiny bundle of possessions.

He was grateful that this wasn't a likely situation.

Tony tapped on the bathroom door, the knocks sounding hesitant, reluctant, with long pauses in between. "Steve?" he called softly, "are you almost ready to go?"

And Steve looked at himself again in the mirror, and wished that he could say yes.

* * *

The Mercedes hummed to life beneath Steve's fingers, as smooth as the day they'd first set out a few months ago. The purr of the car's engine was a soft whisper in Steve's ear, a gentle murmur through his veins, pulsing in time with his heartbeat, and Steve smiled and patted the steering wheel fondly, like an old friend. The leather was butter soft underneath his fingertips, and he was almost sad to see it go.

Despite Tony's insistence that they leave as soon as possible, it was almost evening before they eventually piled their bags into the Mercedes and set off down the highway.

After Steve had gotten up reluctantly at ten that morning, Tony had then proceeded to dawdle around the hotel room, fussing over the tiniest things, even going so far as to insist Steve do his laundry also, it really wouldn't do to be carrying around so many dirty clothes even though no protests had been raised over that in the past few weeks.

Three hours later - because Tony's expensive argyle sweater vests had to air dry, you know how it is, though Steve really didn't know - and Tony had insisted that they also get lunch in Albuquerque. One pulled pork sandwich and three cups of coffee later, Tony eyed Steve and told him that he had to buy a gift for Emily before he went to see her.

Steve was terribly tempted to ask why they would need a gift, he had an inkling of what had happened, but secretly was hoping his instinct wasn't right, so he held his tongue. He accompanied Tony to some stores in downtown Albuquerque, going in and out of bookstores, toy shoppes, looking for the perfect gift for a little girl.

He watched with a smile on his face as Tony searched through piles of snowy white teddy bears with silky ribbons tied in fat bows around their necks. "Emily had a teddy like this," Tony remarked over his shoulder, holding up a spotted black and white bear with red velvet paw pads. "She loved that thing to death, but I guess they must have stopped making the model or something or spotted bears aren't fashionable anymore."

He rolled his eyes at Steve and sighed dramatically. "Spotted bears, can you imagine? She called it Oreo. She loved Oreos."

Steve smiled fondly as Tony turned back to the bin of stuffed animals and resumed his pawing through the fluff and velvet and satin.

"Can I help you?" a young woman asked him, tapping his shoulder gently. Steve turned around. She had lovely dark hair that curled at the ends where it touched her shoulders, and a pretty mouth with full lips and a gentle curved smile. Everything about her reminded him of Peggy, from the stubborn curl across her forehead that refused to stay in place to the tiny beauty mark gracing her left cheek.

And Steve looked, and looked, and said, "No, thank you, we're just looking," and turned back to Tony. He heard the sales associate's footsteps tap tapping away across the black and white checkered linoleum of the floor, and smiled sadly to himself.

* * *

Once Tony had finally selected a teddy bear with snow-white fur and dressed in a mini surgeon's outfit, complete with mint green scrubs with a little pocket, a surgical mask, and a tiny stethoscope slung around his neck, the afternoon sunlight was slanting in through the shoppe's windows. Steve had been sitting off to the side, going through Tony's reader and finishing up Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone. It was truly a fascinating book, he thought to himself, and he could see the charm it might have for young and older readers alike. J.K. Rowling sure did have a way with words, he mused, and the immersive reader Tony had developed integrated sounds and sights (and even smells, although Steve wasn't sure if this was from the reader itself or from the gaggles of heavily perfumed women that passed by him and threw him sympathetic looks) provided quite the experience.

It was 6:30 before they even reached the interstate, and Steve was starting to feel a little fatigued from sitting down. But Tony looked so peaceful, sitting there in a freshly pressed shirt and sweater vest combo, his hair neatly combed, and there were speckles of grey at his temples that made him look far more sophisticated than he had any right to be. And he had the teddy bear sitting all nice and happy on his lap, buckled safely into the seatbelt, and Steve wondered how he'd ever missed it, the fact that Tony was a father.

How could he have been anything but? Even if he did idolise women and drink frightening amounts of alcohol and indulge in some illegal activities. But those were probably just billionaire things, Steve thought, and he'd made Tony promise he wouldn't do those things anymore when he was on tour in South Korea.

Well, he hadn't explicitly said the words "I promise," but he'd given Steve a sort of sideways look and a little half-smile. And the way he was clutching the teddy bear to his chest with passing headlights illuminating his face every once in a while, Steve felt like he'd at least try. And he'd talk to Pepper once he got back to New York.

Steve had never met her, but she seemed like the type of woman who'd understand.

* * *

At three in the morning, Steve's eyelids were drooping and he had to pinch his thigh every other minute to keep himself awake. He'd tried opening the Mercedes window and letting the dusty nighttime air flap against his face, but the soft leather seat of the Mercedes was really very nice and soft, and against his better will Steve felt his eyes drifting shut every few moments. Luckily, the bumps and jars of the car drifting off the road managed to jolt him out of sleep whenever the car started sliding off the road, but he just couldn't do this anymore. Not after getting five hours of sleep last night and holding Tony and listening to his stories and worrying about what possibly could have happened. He was simply just too tired.

"Tony," he said, finally pulling off at a rest stop for petrol. They were somewhere in the lower half of Nevada, and Steve pictured the car a tiny blip in the lowest corner of the state, like the giant puzzle of America he'd had as a kid.

"Tony," he repeated, prodding the billionaire as they sat under the harsh fluorescent lights of the gasoline station. The billionaire was slumped against the window, his cheek leaving a hideous smudge mark against the glass, and he jumped when Steve poked him rather roughly.

"Wha's up?" he mumbled sleepily, rubbing his eyes with the back of his hand and blinking blearily at Steve. "Is it the police? Tell them I'll pay my parking ticket when I get back to New York and I'm sorry about the cocaine I swear it was just baby powder -"

"No, silly," Steve muttered, rolling his eyes. "It's not the police, silly. I'm tired. It's not safe to have a tired driver. We might crash."

"Crash and burn in a fiery explosion. What a way to go," Tony mused. "Although, if it were me, I'd rather have a heart attack after numerous rounds of sex, like that one guy in Idaho."

Steve smiled and rolled his eyes. "Look," he said, unbuckling his seat belt. "If you want to get to Los Angeles so badly, you'd better drive yourself. I'm pretty bushed, and it's only two hours more, or thereabouts."

Steve stepped out of the car and stretched his arms over his head, craning his neck from side to side to loosen the cricks. The cool night air felt amazing against his skin, and he breathed a sigh of relief as he tilted his head back and stared up into the harsh glare of the fluorescent bulbs above him. The smell of petrol hung heavy and pungent in the breeze, and Tony was climbing out of the car now, the teddy bear still held carefully against his chest, and even though fluorescent lights weren't supposed to be flattering on anyone, Steve privately thought he'd never seen a more perfect sight.

* * *

The car's engine purring smoothly underneath him as it glided gently along the expressway soon had Steve dozing off in the passenger seat.

After refilling the tank with more fuel, Tony had climbed into the driver's seat and patted the passenger side, indicating to Steve that he should sit there. Steve obliged readily, and watched as Tony fitted the key in the ignition, twisted it, and buckled up himself and the bear.

"Safety first," Tony said, with a small smile across the space between them. Steve reached out, placed a hand over Tony's on the gear shift, and gave it a small squeeze.

* * *

Steve wasn't sure what time it was when he woke up, but it must have been sometime in the early morning as the pinks and golds of the waking sun streaked across the clouds and painted their bellies with pastels.

He blinked for a few moments, marveling at the quietness, at the stillness, of the soft, even breathing of the man beside him in the parked car the only thing to break the silence.

Steve looked around at the rolling green hills surrounding them, at the tall oak trees arching above the car and dropping leaves onto the windshield. Over the next hill, he saw the white arches and spires of a chapel with tall lettering on the side, but no matter how much he rubbed his eyes and squinted, he couldn't make out the words.

Tony shifted beside him, mumbled something unintelligible before slipping back into dreams. Quietly, so as not to wake him, Steve unbuckled his seat belt, curled his fingers around the door handle, and pushed it open.

The dewy grass brushed against his ankles as he stepped outside and breathed in the crisp morning air. He walked a few steps before feeling a hard, slippery surface underneath the soles of his trainers.

Taking a step back and looking down, Steve's eyes traced over the words engraved onto the bronze plaque embedded in the ground.

He sighed and pinched the bridge of his nose where he could feel a migraine building.

"Oh, Tony," he murmured softly, even though the billionaire couldn't hear him, even though he was still sound asleep in the car. "Oh..."

The graves around him were soft in silence, and Tony slept on, the bear held safely in his lap.


	17. Jewel Bruises (LA, California)

Written to Brand New Colony - The Postal Service, crosspost from AO3

* * *

A few hours later, as the sun crept higher and higher in the sky, Tony woke up. Finding Steve gone, he shoved open his car door, still clutching the bear loosely in one hand, and went out to find him.

Steve, for his part, had been wandering the grounds aimlessly, marveling at the flatness of the cemetery. There were no headstones, no monuments, only a few marble statues here and there and the tall sweeping branches of the occasional tree to break the levelness of the ground. He took great care not to walk on the grave plaques, and whispered "Sorry, sorry, sorry," as he walked around the rolling hills, breathing in the quiet and silence. The graves around and under him, if they minded, didn't say anything, not like he'd expected them to.

He'd watched Peggy's casket go into the ground, the black wood blending into the darkness of the dirt around it, had watched the first shovelfuls of loam and grass spill over the wood. Her headstone had been engraved with her name:

Margaret "Peggy" Carter  
April 9, 1984 - March 14, 2009  
A beloved daughter and friend

Her headstone hadn't mentioned Steve at all; it was as if their lives had intersected seemingly only at one point before quickly moving on their separate ways. And Steve, the day she was buried, had wanted to ask her parents why, why wasn't he important enough, but they had looked at him with that blank, dead look in their eyes, and he couldn't bring himself to speak to them.

Tony caught up with him as he crested the next hill. From this vantage point, he could see the whole cemetery laid out around him, the morning sunlight sparkling off the errant plaque here or there, catching on the chapel's spires and painting the stained glass windows with an ethereal shimmer that Steve could see even from here. The arms of the cross set atop the chapel reached out to embrace the sky, and the giant oak and pine trees studded around the rolling hills lifted great black branches up to tickle the underbellies of the fat clouds that skated by overhead.

Tony was a little bit winded as he caught up to Steve, the bear dangling loosely by one hand in Tony's own. Steve squinted out across the cemetery, marveling at the sheer number of graves, wondering at exactly how many people were buried here, waiting for Tony to catch his breath and straighten up beside him. When he did, Steve turned to look at him.

"Tony, I'm...sorry," he said, finally, shoving his hands into his jacket pockets, and scuffing at the ground with the toe of one of his trainers. "I didn't know."

"No, of course you didn't." Tony's voice was soft. "It wasn't really something I'd planned on just dropping on you. If you want, you can go and wait in the car, I just have to see her."

Steve reached out, grasping Tony's free hand in his own. At Tony's silence, he smiled gently, comfortingly. "I'll come with you, if that's alright."

After a moment of hesitation, Tony curled his fingers around Steve's and gave a slight nod.

* * *

"What is this place?" Steve asked as he and Tony turned, hand in hand, to walk back down the hill in the opposite direction they'd come. "I've never seen such a...beautiful cemetery. If the word 'beautiful' can be used to describe a cemetery."

"It's called Forest Lawn," Tony said, the morning sunlight painting his features in sharp relief. "Their thing is that you don't put memorials or headstones or statues or whatever here. So yeah, I guess it is sort of beautiful. It looks like the sort of place you'd take your children" - Tony's voice cracked here, and Steve pretended not to notice as he cleared his throat - "for a nice day in the park. You wouldn't know it was a cemetery until you looked down."

Steve wondered how Tony knew where he was going, with no visual landmarks besides the graves to guide him, and they were passing the plaques far too quickly for Steve to be able to study and read them. He supposed Tony had been here before, so he must have known his way around.

They crested another hill, another, another, until the ground leveled out again beneath them and they found themselves at a plateau with a clear view of the cemetery beneath them. Steve, for all his military training, was out of breath, and Tony was bent double, his hands resting on his knees as he caught his breath and rubbed at a stitch in his side. The sun had risen higher in the sky, right above the top of the cross on the chapel, and from here, the cars of other visitors looked like toy automobiles; the visitors themselves were tiny specks of colour, moving around, carrying little bundles of flowers which they placed into wells in the ground.

"Here," Tony said after a little bit, "it's not much farther now."

And, taking Steve's hand in his own again, Tony dragged him along.

* * *

"Here we are."

Tony slowed to a stop, and Steve, after a few moments, followed his gaze to the ground.

There were only two plaques with engraving here in front of them. The rest of the row was filled with smooth bronze, and Steve could only assume that the plots there were empty. He had a sickening vision of the ground opening up in dark, square mouths to swallow up more caskets - the mahogany oak caskets, long and slender, for parents, adults, husbands and wives, white wood ones, half the size, made especially for children and babies -

"So, this is Emily." Tony's voice snapped him out of his reverie, and he turned to examine the two plaques in front of him.

On the left was a plaque for "Edwin Jarvis, October 12, 1923 - April 04, 2003, a father in all but name." Steve assumed that this was for the butler Tony had told him about, the one who'd made him feel like Batman, like his life was a series of adventures. He smiled fondly at the memory, and privately thought Tony would have made a rather good Batman. He definitely had the money for all those cool gadgets Batman seemed to have in the movies. But black wasn't really Tony's colour, he decided as he took a look at the billionaire out of the corner of his eye. It was too sombre; Tony definitely looked better in hues of red.

The plaque on the right was shinier, newer.

"Emily Stark," it read. "January 14, 2009 - November 19, 2012, beloved daughter."

The dates wrenched Steve's heart, and he pressed his lips together. Tony was looking at him, and he didn't appear to notice he had tears glossing his eyes.

"I didn't even speak at her funeral," Tony said quietly, and there was a hint of a sob in his voice. "I guess I was in shock. Something like that. I was wasted, that's more to the truth. I dunno, the week following...this" - he gestured to the plaque in front of them - "is sort of a blur. I remember loud, flashing lights, drowning in an open bar and the whispers of women who wanted nothing to do with me and wanted everything to do with my money. It was bad, Steve. It was really bad."

Tony sat down on the grass, dragging Steve down with him. A soft breeze ruffled through Tony's hair, and the sunlight threw the dark circles underneath Tony's eyes into sharp contrast. Steve wanted to ask if this was okay, sitting on his daughter's grave like this, but Tony continued before he could say anything.

"And poor Pepper," he murmured quietly, looking contemplatively at the bronze, "she loved Ems just as much, and I couldn't be there for her after she...died." His voice broke on the last word, and Steve reached an arm around Tony's shoulders and hugged him to his chest tightly. Tony's shoulders were shaking with suppressed sobs, and Steve hushed him, soft murmurs of comfort.

"She had to bail me out of the city jail," Tony said, taking off his glasses and pressing the heels of his hands into his eyes to scrub away the tears. "I had gotten arrested for possession of illegal narcotics. I don't know, maybe I was planning to kill myself, or something like that. I don't really know what I wanted to do with them, I don't really remember; in any case, it was selfish, it was horrid, and Pepper and I weren't strong enough to stay through that. We were young and stupid and in love, and I couldn't give her the perfect life, the perfect romance that all people want before they're forced to grow up. And what happened to Em...it made us grow up, made us see that we weren't strong enough for that sort of thing."

Tony was silent for a while, his breath coming in shuddery hiccups against Steve's shoulder. Steve gently stroked Tony's hair, pressed a kiss to the side of his face, asked him softly, "What happened?"

"It was in October of last year," Tony said, his voice slightly muffled in Steve's shoulder. "I was giving her a bath after she'd come home from the zoo with Pepper. She was laughing, bubbles in her hair, and she was telling me about the elephants and the zebras and the cute pink birds that smelled very bad, but Pepper had told her that that was because they ate a lot of smelly shrimp."

Steve couldn't help but smile at that.

"And so I'm scrubbing her back," Tony continued, his voice choked again, and Steve waited patiently for him to go on, "when she suddenly tells me, 'Ouch, Daddy, that hurts!' So of course I have to look, to make sure I didn't accidentally cut her with the sponge or anything, as stupid as that sounds. There was a string of bruises up her spine, like a necklace of little blue jewels."

Tony swallowed roughly, and Steve could feel tears soaking into his cotton sleeve. "So I asked her, 'Emily, what is this? Did you fall down?' And she looks at me, 'No, I never fall, Daddy,' all accusingly. I had to bribe her with candy to get her into the car to go to the doctor's.

"She kicked and scratched like a wildcat from hell, pardon my language," Tony said to the plaque beside them, "when the nurses told her they would just need to stick her a little bit. I guess all needles look big and scary when you're a kid, huh? And I told her not to look as they took her blood, that it was going to be okay, that it was just silly Daddy making sure she was alright."

"I know you haven't had kids yet, and probably aren't interested in having them any time soon," Tony said, his voice thick. "But let me tell you, it's one of the worst things in the world, feeling helpless and having to stand by as the doctor mails you a week later and tells you she has leukemia, outlines a treatment plan. It's silly, isn't it, how just one word, four syllables, can make your heart stop, and you go to church every day after that, praying to whatever God or higher being that might exist, that that word wouldn't be in your mind anymore. And they don't answer you, that's the worst part, so it's always in the forefront of your brain, the first thing you think about when you wake up, the last thing before you go to bed, if you can get any sleep at all."

Steve nodded slightly, he'd felt sort of the same way when his mother had been diagnosed with Alzheimer's.

"She spent the last month of her life in a hospital," Tony said, sobbing in earnest now, his back heaving underneath Steve's hands. "She cried a lot at the beginning, when the chemotherapy made her lose her beautiful dark curls, she said the chemicals made her feel bad and she didn't want them anymore. And I told her she had to have them, they would get rid of all the bad stuff inside her.

"The doctors came to me and Pepper a few weeks later with clipboards and statistics, and told us that Emily's white blood cell count was too low, far too low. The head doctor in charge of Emily's case looked at me with pity, told me I should consider making arrangements. 'Arrangements for what?' I asked, and I guess it was because I didn't want to believe what I was hearing. 'For her funeral,' he told me. I think I started laughing then, because that was just totally impossible, because Emily wasn't going to die, not my Emily, the doctors must have picked up the wrong charts or something. But of course that never happens."

Steve had tears in his eyes as he rubbed soothing circles into Tony's back and listened.

"'Daddy,' Emily asked me one night, the week before, 'am I going to die?'"

Tony paused for a very long moment, shuddering.

"And you know what I said?" This was said so quietly that Steve had to ask him to repeat it.

"I looked at her, held her tiny, almost skeletal hand in mine, I looked her in the eye, and I told her 'No, sweetheart, Daddy won't let you die.'"

Tony's voice broke, and while he was trying to gather himself together, Steve brushed the back of his hand over his eyes, hastily scrubbing away tears.

"It's the worst thing, Steve," Tony said, choked. "To be a billionaire, to literally have the world at your fingertips, and to have to make a promise you can't keep."

Steve held Tony's shaking form as the sun crept over the sky and the soft winter breeze rustled dead leaves across the ground.

* * *

"I never really did say goodbye," Tony said quietly, his eyes dry and red. Steve's sleeve was still damp. "But I suppose it's better to be late than to never do it. Jarvis," he tilted his head in the direction of Jarvis's plaque, "would disagree. Jarvis was always annoyingly punctual; he's probably up there with Emily, looking down and shaking his head disapprovingly like he used to do." Tony smiled fondly, sadly.

"So, Emily," he said, "I guess it's been a while. And Daddy's sorry about that, really he is. It's just that you surprised him quite a lot, when you went away, and Daddy thought you were just playing hide and seek, that he'd find you eventually. So I guess this is really happening, or you're just about the world's greatest hide and seek champion, Ems."

Steve bowed his head respectfully.

"I didn't get to know you for that long. Only for three years, ten months, and five days, and okay, we didn't get off to the best start, did we? But Ems, I gotta tell you, I love you to pieces. You were always so happy, you always got to make me laugh, and got Pepper to do things for you that I could never even convince her to think about. I hope that, wherever you are right now, if you're with Jarvis, he's spoiling you rotten and letting you stay up past your bedtime and reading you story books like I used to do with you.

"Remember The Velveteen Rabbit, and The Giving Tree, and how you liked to suck on lemon drops like Dumbledore?" Tony smiled fondly at the memory. "Daddy's still working on the reader, he hasn't quite gotten around to fixing it. Oh, that reminds me, Ems, this is Daddy's boyfriend. His name is Steve."

Steve gave an awkward wave. "Hi, Emily," he said quietly. Tony smiled at him before continuing.

"Peppa told me to tell you that she loves you, and misses you very much. Don't worry, even though I've got Steve here, Pepper and I are still very good friends, so that's okay. I know this isn't Oreo, but I brought you a teddy so you might not be so lonely, if you are. Jarvis didn't believe in teddies, but maybe for you he'll be nice about it. Okay, Jarvis, you be good to my daughter, you hear? At least until I get there."

A breeze rustled through the grass, kicking up dead leaves and swirling them around their ankles. Tony set the bear carefully on Emily's headstone before standing up.

"Steve here is in the army, you know, those strong men on the TV that wear the brown and green outfits that you think are really funny," Tony remarked. "He has to go to a very far place very soon. Daddy doesn't really want him to go, because then Daddy might get a little bit lonely, but I think I'll be okay."

Tony dusted off the knees of his pants, looked down at the plaque, sighed once more.

"I'm sorry I can't stay here longer with you, Ems. Jarvis will just have to watch you until I get up there with you, and then we can play all the time. I don't think you would have liked being buried in New York, you always said it was too cold, and I'm not sure Grandma and Grandpa would have been as nice to you as I'm sure Jarvis is being," Tony said, and Steve wondered if he was aware of the fresh tears stroking down his cheeks. "But Daddy has to take Steve back home now, because he wants to say goodbye to his mommy too, before he goes away for a bit.

"But before I go, let me just tell you something," Tony said, kneeling back down on the grass in front of Emily's plaque. "I am sorry it couldn't be longer, but the three years, ten months, and five days you spent with me were the best days of my life. I was proud to be your daddy. I still am."

Tony pressed a kiss to the bronze metal before pushing himself up and coming to stand next to Steve.

His mouth, when Steve caught it with his own, tasted like metal and salt and soft promises of love.


End file.
